Corey Perry repeatedly refuses to drop the gloves with Ryan Reaves
One of the main storylines in tonight's Hawks/Leafs game has been the back-and-forth exchanges between Corey Perry and Ryan Reaves, which had begun following Noah Gregor's 1st period hit on Nikita Zaitsev, which resulted in Gregor dropping the gloves with Connor Murphy.
After dropping the gloves in back-to-back games against Arber Xhekaj and Marcus Foligno, Reaves has yet to fight in this one, but I'm sure if he could bait Corey Perry into actually dropping his gloves, he'd make it 3-for-3 and add a third fight to his Leafs resume.
Following the Gregor/Murphy scrap, Perry and Reaves were spotted exchanging words from their respective benches. A visibly upset Perry was really leaning into Reaves, who wore a grin almost the entire time, knowing full well that Perry's words wouldn't lead to any actual action.
"Never back it up though. Never f--king back it up, never." - Reaves to Perry
Reaves did get his hands on him at one point during the second period, hovering over a turtling Perry, delivering some gentle nudges and trying to bait him into fighting him before Nick Foligno came over and shoved Reaves over top of Perry. A scrum would ensue shortly thereafter.
We'll see if any of this talk turns into a fight in the 3rd period, but for now, I'm sure Foligno and Perry are happy to just try to preserve their current 3-1 lead. If the game gets a little closer, perhaps we'll see the physicality ramp up a little bit.
| POLL | ||
OCTOBRE 16 | 63 ANSWERS Corey Perry repeatedly refuses to drop the gloves with Ryan Reaves Will Perry and Reaves fight one another this season? | ||
| Yes | 17 | 27 % |
| No | 8 | 12.7 % |
| LOL Perry is too afraid | 38 | 60.3 % |
| List of polls | ||
