VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- In the dying minutes of the Calgary Flames' 3-1 win over the Vancouver Canucks on Tuesday night, Jiri Hudler and Henrik Sedin got in each other’s faces. Things were said between the Calgary forward and Vancouver captain. There was shoving.

“We exchanged some words,” a tight-lipped Sedin said Wednesday after the Canucks held an optional skate. “He knows what we talked about. I know what we talked about. That’s it.”

Hudler and Sedin are paid to produce offense -- not get physical. But their brief, heated encounter was just another example of the animosity that has grown between the Flames and Canucks as Calgary takes a 3-1 series lead into Thursday’s Game 5 of their Western Conference first-round series.

So far, the series has produced two brawls and plenty of bruises. Calgary coach Bob Hartley has been fined $50,000, and the teams have combined for 265 penalty minutes.

Canucks coach Willie Desjardins explained the bad blood by saying the intensity level rises during the playoffs.

“The rivalry between the two cities, the previous playoff history -- there are lots of things that go into that," Desjardins said. “If you battle each other hard, you’re not always going to be happy with what happens. There’s going to be feelings coming out both ways. It’s always tough when you’re in a series and you can’t do things because you can’t take penalties. Then you get frustrated, and you’re not able to get that energy out, and it carries forward. There’s been a little bit of that on both sides.”

Here’s a look at five of the players who have helped turn the Vancouver-Calgary series into a war:

1. Michael Ferland: The 23-year-old from Swan River, Manitoba, has been a heat-seeking missile. He has left the Canucks bloodied and bruised with 26 bone-rattling hits. In Game 4, he crushed Canuck defenseman Kevin Bieksa and stapled Chris Tanev to the boards. At 6-foot-2 and 210 pounds, Ferland not only can flatten people like a locomotive but also plays with smarts. In the opening game, he was on the ice when Calgary had a one-goal lead with fewer than 30 seconds remaining. In Game 3, with the Flames leading 4-2, he kept his cool when Vancouver’s Derek Dorsett tried to goad him into a fight.

“Ferly’s a power hitter,” Calgary coach Bob Hartley said. “He can hit anyone, but he’s not a dirty player. He’s not a coward.

“There’s no blindside hits with Ferly. He plays the game hard, but he plays it the right way.”

2. Kevin Bieksa: The Canuck defenseman can be mean on the ice and possesses a sharp tongue in the dressing room. After a line brawl late in Game 2, he said Vancouver wouldn’t be intimidated by the Flames.

“We have played against Ben Eager and some other dumb-dumbs like that before,” he said. “We know how to handle that.”

Bieksa referred to Ferland as "that Ferklund" and said his impact on the series was "irrelevant." Near the end of Game 3, Bieksa began throwing punches at Ferland and hit him three times before the Calgary player could respond.

“It’s not about bad blood. It’s about trying to win the games,” Bieksa said. “It doesn’t matter what happens in the games. At the end of the night, we are trying to score more goals than them.

“It’s a physical series like any other series. I don’t think there’s anything special about it. The focus in here is to win the game. It’s not the bad blood, it’s not the scrums and the fights. It’s to win the games. The rest of the stuff happens in the heat of the moment.”

3. Alex Burrows: The Canuck forward isn’t expected to return for the rest of the series, due to a reported rib injury he suffered in the morning skate before Game 4, but his legacy remains. Burrows has the ability to be an agitator and provoke reactions from other players.

Near the end of Game 3, he rammed Flames rookie Johnny Gaudreau into the boards, then Burrows dropped his gloves and began throwing punches when defenseman Kris Russell came to his teammate’s defense. Burrows was given an instigator minor but wasn’t suspended, even though the infraction happened in the final five minutes of the game.

4. Deryk Engelland: With 1:17 left in Game 2 and Vancouver leading Calgary 4-1, emotions boiled over into a line brawl (minus the goalies). The 6-foot-2, 215-pound Engelland squared off against the smaller Dorsett. Engelland was raining blows on Dorsett, so Canuck defenseman Dan Hamhuis intervened.

The officials finally separated the players, only to have Engelland and Dorsett go to blows again.

After the game, Hamhuis made it clear what he thought of Engelland.

“He kept throwing punches while Dorsett was defenseless on his back, so you had no choice but to get in there and help him,” Hamhuis said. “That’s pretty disrespectful when you have a guy down and you continue to punch.”

5. Eddie Lack: The Vancouver goaltender, playing in his first playoff series, took a lot of hits in Game 2. In the second period, Calgary left winger Brandon Bollig crashed through the crease and fell on top of Lack. An incensed Lack got up swinging with his blocker and bounced a couple blows off Bollig.

Lack has no doubt the Flames’ game plan is to try to frustrate him.

“It’s the playoffs, and that’s what is going to happen,” he said. “I felt like the last couple of games I have been fairly calm. It’s just the way it goes.”

Bollig makes no apologies for the Flames' not backing down all series.

“Guys know that we have each other’s backs,” he said. “We’re a team. It’s been our MO all year. We stick together, and we stand up for each other.

“We’ve had plenty of fights this year in response to a big hit or something like that. We’ve never strayed far from that team mentality, and the end was just a result of sticking up for each other.”