Washington’s Tom Wilson was fined but not suspended for his actions during a post-whistle scrum in New York, an outcome the Capitals are ready to move on from and the Rangers feel isn’t sufficient punishment for one of hockey’s most polarizing players.
The NHL fined Wilson $5,000 Tuesday for roughing Rangers forward Pavel Buchnevich during the second period of a game Monday night at Madison Square Garden. The fine is the maximum allowable for the incident under the collective bargaining agreement, and Wilson was not disciplined for throwing Artemi Panarin to the ice moments later.
“I just think it’s a joke, to be honest with you,” New York’s Ryan Strome said. “I know it’s not my responsibility to make decisions, but I just can’t believe that. I think it sends a bad message, in my opinion. I think everyone pretty much agrees with that. And I just think that the league missed one here big time.”
Wilson was given a double-minor penalty for roughing and a 10-minute misconduct. The fine represents 0.12% of Wilson’s $4.1 million salary for this season.
“It’s the discipline that’s sent down from the league, and Tom will pay it and we’ll move on,” said Capitals Coach Peter Laviolette, who after the game called it a physical play that “happens a lot.”
“It looked like they were jamming at the goalie and Tom punched him in the top of the shoulder area and then punched him somewhere on the backside as he’s trying to get in there and pull him off and received the roughing penalty,” Laviolette added. “After that, he had a couple guys jump on his back and there was a big scrum that went on and ensued from there.”
Panarin was ruled out of the remainder of the game with what the team called a lower-body injury. Coach David Quinn said Panarin would miss the final three games of the Rangers season and confirmed the injury came from the incident with Wilson, which won’t cause the 27-year-old Capitals forward to miss any time.
“To me, anybody in hockey – certainly everybody in our organization – is very disappointed,” Quinn said. “We certainly thought it warranted a suspension. We’re just really disappointed. A line was crossed: Guy didn’t have his helmet on, vulnerable, he got hurt. To me, it was an awful lot there to suspend him.”
This is Wilson’s third fine in eight NHL seasons, and he has been suspended five times. The most recent suspension was seven games in March for boarding Boston’s Brandon Carlo.
When suspending him for the hit on Carlo, the league’s department of player safety called Wilson “a player with a substantial disciplinary record taking advantage of an opponent who is in a defenseless position and doing so with significant force.” The same department found Wilson’s actions against the Rangers not to be worthy of a suspension.
“He’s big, he’s strong and when he gets into scrums and he wrestles, (I told him), `You’ve got to be careful’ because, I think, with the attention on him, he gets looked at in a certain way,” Laviolette said. “He has to play his game, he has to be hard to play against, he has to be physical, but in the same sense he’s got to know that eyes are on him, as well.”
Wilson had a clean record for the previous 2 1/2 years, dating to a 20-game suspension in the fall of 2018 for an illegal check to the head of St. Louis forward Oskar Sundqvist. That initially carried a $1.26 million fine, and it was reduced to 14 games by an independent arbitrator after appeal, though Wilson had already served 17 games.
The Capitals and Rangers play again Wednesday night. Quinn was noncommittal about calling up an enforcer for the game but said he knew how his team would respond.
“As players, you want the league to have your back in those situations, and I think a lot of guys in our dressing room just feel like they didn’t,” Strome said. “This is a non-hockey-related play. And he’s a big, strong guy. I’m sure he’d answer the bell, but I just think in a situation that’s not related to play, I think it’s the league’s responsibility – not necessarily guys policing it on the ice.”
KRAKEN: Months before their first game, the Seattle Kraken have launched the club’s One Roof Foundation in partnership with Climate Pledge Arena.
The foundation will have three primary areas of focus: youth homelessness; youth access to hockey; and environmental justice.
“We’re really coming at this from an impact angle, which to me is ever more exciting because you can actually figure out here’s some really big issues in our society, how can we lean in and help address them?” said Mari Horita, vice president for community engagement and social impact for the Kraken, who will also serve as executive director for the foundation.
The youth homelessness focus will build on the team’s partnership with YouthCare to help with funding, visibility and job support. The youth hockey aspect will include partnering with local schools and youth organizations to help make both floor and ice hockey more accessible.
Horita said the environmental justice portion is still being developed but is about “elevating the voices of and investing in those communities that are historically disproportionately impacted.”
The announcement of the foundation coincides with the state beginning to sell specialty Kraken license plates. The foundation says 75% of the revenue generated from the sale of the license plates will go to the foundation and help development in the targeted areas.
TUESDAY’S GAMES
AHURRICANES 6, BLACKHAWKS 3: Andrei Svechnikov ended an eight-game goal drought by scoring twice to help Carolina beat visiting Chicago.
Svechnikov also had an assist on Teuvo Teravainen’s third-period goal for the Hurricanes, who had to battle and erase a 2-0 deficit to maintain momentum toward winning the franchise’s first Presidents’ Trophy.
SABRES 4, ISLANDERS 3: Anders Bjork scored Buffalo’s last two goals in regulation and then had the deciding shootout goal, lifting the Sabres over visiting New York.
Cody Eakin also scored for the last-place Sabres, who rallied past the playoff-bound Islanders for the second straight night. Victor Olofsson had two assists.
Sabres goaltender Michael Houser made 45 saves and stopped all three shots he faced in the shootout in his second NHL game.
Cal Clutterbuck had a goal and an assist for the Islanders.
PENGUINS 7, FLYERS 3: Sidney Crosby scored two goals and visiting Pittsburgh regained first place in the East Division.
Marcus Pettersson, Jake Guentzel, Jason Zucker, Mark Friedman and John Marino also scored goals and Tristan Jarry had 30 saves for the Penguins, who moved two points ahead of idle Washington.
The Capitals have two games in hand over the Penguins with one week left in the regular season.
The Flyers got goals from Justin Braun, Sean Couturier and Travis Konecny. Brian Elliott had 24 saves in the loss.
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