What transpired on the ice in New York on Wednesday could have been avoided if the NHL had properly handled the Tom Wilson situation.
The previous game, Wilson punched Pavel Buchnevich's head to the ice while Buchnevich was down on his stomach, defenseless. Then when Artemi Panarin stepped in to defend Buchnevich, Wilson grabbed Panarin, who was without a helmet, by the hair and yanked his head down to the ice. Panarin is out for the remainder of the season as a result. Wilson was fined $5,000 by the department of player safety for roughing Buchnevich, and received no supplemental discipline for his actions toward Panarin
To the surprise of no one (with Wilson's line not even on the ice) there was a line brawl right off the opening faceoff Wednesday, with three pairs of Capitals and Rangers dropping the gloves:
3 FIGHTS OFF THE FACEOFF!!!!!!#ALLCAPS #NYR
— Here's Your Replay ⬇️ (@HeresYourReplay) May 5, 2021
🎥 @NHLonNBCSports pic.twitter.com/RWWY9waLD0
Seconds after Wilson stepped onto the ice for his first shift, he dropped the gloves with Brendan Smith:
Brendan Smith goes straight after Tom Wilson once he stepped onto the ice for the first time tonight.pic.twitter.com/Dxz1NNwJ22
— Rangers Videos (@SNYRangers) May 5, 2021
... followed by Anthony Bitetto and Michael Raffl:
#NYR Anthony Bitetto vs #ALLCAPS Michael Raffl
— Here's Your Replay ⬇️ (@HeresYourReplay) May 5, 2021
🎥 @NHLonNBCSports pic.twitter.com/KBoysddVmd
... then Ryan Strome and Lars Eller:
#NYR Ryan Strome vs #ALLCAPS Lars Eller
— Here's Your Replay ⬇️ (@HeresYourReplay) May 5, 2021
🎥 @NHLonNBCSports pic.twitter.com/Q4sZjINQPm
And that's just the first five minutes of the first period.
Clearly, the NHL opting to let the players police the game instead of handling Wilson itself really made Wilson think hard about his actions and feel remorse, as evidenced by Wilson laughing in the packed penalty box:
Wilson exited the game with an upper-body injury in the second period. It's not clear when or how he sustained the injury.
The game remained relatively quiet for the remainder of the game, aside from Buchnevich cross-checking Anthony Mantha in the face:
Pavel Buchnevich gets a major for cross-checking Anthony Mantha and a game misconduct #NYR pic.twitter.com/yfTIkhLZNq
— Shayna (@hayyyshayyy) May 6, 2021
The fighting in the 1st period didn’t concern the league brass dialed into the Caps/Rangers game, but Buchnevich crosschecking Mantha in the face is likely to keep the DOPs/NYR communications ongoing for another day.
— Darren Dreger (@DarrenDreger) May 6, 2021
Sure, the Buchnevich incident is definitely worthy of discipline. But for that to be the league's only issue with this game? Really?
The Rangers' Smith, who fought Wilson, said he did so because the NHL let Wilson get away with his actions the previous game with just a fine.
"I had no beef with anybody else on their team," Smith said. "I thought that it should've been handled before this game and it wasn't, so unfortunately it had to be kind of on my shoulders and I thought I took it."
The league could have avoided that whole mess in the first period by properly handling Wilson's punishment. And if tensions aren't so high from that, then the Buchnevich crosscheck probably doesn't even happen. The NHL did this.
YOUR TURN: Do you think this game got out of hand because of the NHL's inaction? Does allowing players to self-police the game work?