Corey Perry and the Anaheim Ducks believe NBC commentator Mike Milbury crossed a line with his comments about the former Hart Trophy winner during Game 2 of the Western Conference Final Wednesday.
Milbury said “If I were playing against him I would want to hurt him in a painful and permanent way,” when asked how he would stop the three-time all-star. Perry and his Ducks teammates did not take those remarks lightly, Helene Elliott of the Los Angeles Times reports.
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Perry said he would like an apology from Milbury, a request his Ducks teammate Ryan Getzlaf echoed. “Hundred percent. I’m sure he will,” Getzlaf said. “I’d expect nothing else. You go out and make a mistake on national TV, I expect you to make an apology. And life goes on.”
Perry has a reputation for getting under the skin of opponents. Still, alluding to deliberately injuring someone, jokingly or not, was not received as playful commentary by the Ducks winger. “If somebody said something about his kid that way, how would he feel?” Perry said. “It’s kind of my response. It’s all I’m going to say.”
NBC Sports/NBCSN executive producer Sam Flood spoke to Milbury about the incident and issued a statement.
“I talked to Mike and told him that even though it was a tongue-in-cheek segment that built to a compliment — with Mike saying that he’d want Corey Perry as a teammate — word choice matters, even when attempting to be humorous. Mike understood.”
So don’t expect any further discussions about harming Corey Perry from Milbury and the NBC crew. You can bank on Perry continuing to play his game and throwing the Blackhawks off their own with his signature style of annoying opponents to no end.
Perry currently sits second in post-season scoring behind Tampa’s Tyler Johnson with eight goals and 16 points in 11 games.