Tom Wilson is the dirtiest player in the NHL, but the league — for whatever reason — has beens shy about punishing him for crossing the line with dangerous hits in recent years.
Maybe that’s changing. Or maybe Wilson finally made such an egregious hit that the player safety department had no choice. Wilson was banned for 7 games after his reckless and stupid hit sent Boston Bruins defenseman Brandon Carlo to the hospital. That’s seven games out of a 56-game schedule, so basically a 10-game suspension in a regular year (Wilson is able to appeal, though.)
Wilson hadn’t been suspended in since October 2018 and a lot of people wanted to believe Wilson had changed or learned or evolved.
Then he did this:
Tom Wilson hits Brandon Carlo up high.
Carlo needs help getting off the ice. pic.twitter.com/RgACye1H7l
— Conor Ryan (@ConorRyan_93) March 6, 2021
If you listen to Capitals fans, they’ll tell you that Wilson has cleaned up his game by not flying into hits with his stick raised high, or by resisting the urge to launch upward toward the head. But he does both of those things here.
Plenty of smart hockey people I respect have made the argument that this was a legal hit — and in fact there was no initial call made on the ice.
But the more I watch this, the more I’m inclined to agree with … uh, Brad Marchand? It’s very uncomfortable to have to agree with Brad Marchand.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDCBKoLoGU0
The NHL muddled its explanation of the suspension a bit, acknowledging that it was legal for Wilson to hit Carlo in that situation but finding fault with the fact that Carlo’s head took so much of the impact:
“While there are aspects of this hit that may skirt the line between suspendable and non-suspendable, it is the totality of the circumstances that caused this play to merit supplemental discipline. What separates this hit from others is the direct and significant contact to a defenseless player’s face and head, causing a violent impact with the glass.”
And that’s probably the most important factor here: Hockey players’ heads need to be protected, both from direct hits like this and jarring body blows that might cause concussions or even sub-concussive impacts.
You may have missed it, but one of the key players in the Miracle On Ice team that won gold at the 1980 Olympics, Mark Pavelich, was found dead last week in his room at a treatment center for mental illness. He’d been diagnosed, after a professional hockey career that lasted 10 years with a neurocognitive disorder due to traumatic brain injury.
In defending the hit, Capitals coach Peter Laviolette said, “If this is a suspendable play, then all hitting is probably going to have to be removed,” and “This kind of hit happens so many times during the course of the game.”
But I watch plenty of hockey and would say that, in 2021, this hit could happen so many times during the course of game but it rarely does because the players have taken it upon themselves to change the game. They play hard and yet still have the wherewithal to decide to forgo checks such as this precisely because they know it may end up with an opponent having his head rattled against the glass.
Wilson is one of the few who still regularly takes run like this.
Wilson was suspended four times times over 13 months between 2017 and 2018, including once for 20 games (the good folks at RMNB have a full list here.)
But he still does cheap stuff that like this all too often:
https://twitter.com/NHLSafetyWatch/status/1365099502286352388
This, too, is the sort of hit that could happen so many times during any given NHL game. Only it doesn’t. Because most players, even the toughest ones, have decided they can be effective without resorting to disrespectful hits against vulnerable opponents.
Wilson plays on the top line in an important market alongside one of the best scorers in NHL history, Alexander Ovechkin. He’s a handsome, marketable player (the Capitals recently tweeted a video of him rolling out after a workout that many joked was NSFW). It feels as though those facts have protected him from real scrutiny; it’s much easier to banish fourth-liners, dust off your hands and say you’ve made the game safer.
Maybe Wilson missing this important chunk of the season (and losing more than $310,000 in salary) will finally make him change his game. Because it most certainly is possible for him to do so. The majority of NHL players have already done it.