After keeping their hands in their pockets and looking the other way throughout Friday's matchup between the Bruins and Capitals, the NHL finally decided to offer some semblance of action after yet another dangerous shot from Washington's Tom Wilson resulted in a seriously injured player — with the NHL Department of Player Safety scheduling a hearing with the controversial winger.
https://twitter.com/NHLPlayerSafety/status/1368228525652709377
By offering an "in-person" hearing (it won't technically be, due to COVID), the door is opened for the NHL to levy a harsher sentence against Wilson for injuring Brandon Carlo with a dangerous high hit — with traditional phone hearings regularly capping suspensions between 1-5 games.
And yet, even if Wilson — who was suspended four times in a span of just 13 months for illegal hits — is eventually suspended for sending Carlo to the hospital in an ambulance, it's tough to feel satisfied.
If you're the Bruins, no punitive measures are going to bring back Carlo, who now faces a steep uphill climb from what was likely a severe concussion.
"He got released from the hospital earlier this morning," Bruce Cassidy said of Carlo's status as of Saturday afternoon. "So he's back home, hasn't been at the rink, obviously. And that's all I got from the trainers this morning."
As tough as the optics are of Wilson crunching another defenseless skater into the boards, the worst part of the entire incident — aside from the murky status of the defenseless B's skater — is that such an event seemed inevitable, with multiple failings from the league, the on-ice officials and even the players themselves leading to a situation in which the NHL now has to clean up another mess caused by a skater with a proven rap sheet.
Even with a hearing scheduled, it remains to be seen just how long Wilson might end up on the shelf. After all, even with his history, Wilson is not technically tabbed as a "repeat offender" by the league, as he's gone more than 18 months without discipline by the league (even if this is a guy with a 20-game suspension on his docket).
There also lies some question as to how the NHL is assessing the hit in question — as the Department of Player Safety tabbed the basis of the hearing as due to "boarding" and not an illegal hit to the head.
Speaking postgame on Friday, the Bruins clearly gave their take on the sequence.
"Clearly looked to me like he got him right in the head. A defenseless player, a predatory hit from a player that's done that before," Cassidy said of Wilson.
https://twitter.com/dafoomie/status/1368040163755098113
Even though Wilson's fate looms large, perhaps more infuriating for Boston in the moments following Wilson's hit was that the on-ice officials didn't step in with any sort of punishment.
"I don't understand why there wasn't a penalty called on the ice," Cassidy said. "They huddled up, but I did not get an explanation why."
Of course, the Bruins exacted proper vengeance against Wilson and Caps by obliterating them on the ice and dropping the gloves twice with the the culprit in question, but offering no immediate punishment for Wilson's infractions opened the door for Friday's game to get very, very ugly.
Given how heavy video review is now incorporated into the game, Brad Marchand admitted his exasperation that such an option isn't available when it comes to reviewing the validity of a play and whether it warrants a serious penalty.
"It's such a fine line," Marchand said. "But that's, I think, the biggest problem is what they're choosing to review and not to review. I mean, last year in the playoffs, there were high sticks that were reviewed when a guy hits his own teammate. If the ref makes a bad call, you let the ref make a bad call, but for a major penalty to not be allowed to be looked at — if the refs are able to look at that on video, it's a clear suspension and he's gone from the game. So that's the whole problem with bringing video into the game the way that they did.
"They care more about looking at a video review of an offside by an inch or half an inch, but they don't care about reviewing a guy's headshot. So it's tough to pick and choose when you start bringing video into it, what you're going to review. And that's the situation where they could have. But again, that's a fine line, you go down that road, where does it stop? So there's a lot of issues with that."
At this point, if there's going to a serious change when it comes to curtailing these types of hits — and get repeat offenders like Wilson out of the game — some of it has to fall on the players and the NHLPA to put more of an emphasis on preventing these types of sequences from playing out, whether that be through educating players on when to pull up from a check or arguing for harsher penalties for high hits.
"I think it has to start from the players, to be totally honest with you," Patrice Bergeron said. "We're the ones that are playing the game. I think there has been some improvement over the years. But there's obviously always work to be done. It's a fast game. I'll give you that. But that being said, I think we have to be smart. We have to think about consequences. When we go for hits, we have to realize that there's times that ... you're in a vulnerable position. And you have to pull up and play the puck on some instances and whether you like it or not, it's just the way it is."
Whatever the sentence is that the NHL hands out against Wilson, it won't mask the fact that the Bruins are still without one of the stalwarts on their blue line for the foreseeable future — and unless major change comes to the league, more of these unfortunate incidents are doomed to sprout back up.
Peter Laviolette sees no issue with Wilson hit
It's only natural for bench bosses to defend their own players after a questionable play on the ice, but Caps head coach Peter Laviolette went the extra mile during his postgame presser on Friday, labeling Wilson's actions against Carlo as "just a hit."
https://twitter.com/SamanthaJPell/status/1368034466195775490
Well, the following afternoon, the Capitals coach doubled down with an even worse take on the situation — spinning a hit from a repeat offender that landed a player in the hospital in the tired, old narrative that the very nature of hitting in hockey hangs in the balance.
“I guess we’re still hopeful (Wilson will play Sunday),” Laviolette said via The Washington Post’s Samantha Pell. “I mean, to me, it was a hockey hit. If this is a suspendable play then all hitting really is going to probably have to be removed because he didn’t take any strides, he didn’t target the head, a player was up against the boards, he was upright and Tom hit him hard. I hope the player’s OK, but, for me, the call I think was correct on the ice last night. This hit happens so many times through the course of the game where somebody hits somebody against the boards and so I think we’re still hopeful that Tom will be available to us."
Just embarrassing, man.
False-positive test lands Coyle on COVID-19 protocol
After a 47-day stretch in which the Bruins avoiding having any player land on the NHL's COVID-19 Protocol list, Wednesday brought the bad news that Charlie Coyle was going to have to sit out of that night's matchup against the Caps due to testing complications.
After taking a rapid test on Wednesday, Coyle received word that he had inexplicably tested positive for the virus.
"You start thinking about everything you've done over the last couple days, start questioning everything," Coyle said. "What did I do? But I haven't really been doing anything. It was kind of hard to believe that I'd be the only one to have it. I kind of knew in my mind that I was gonna be OK."
Sure enough, a follow-up rapid test later that night read negative, with a pair of subsequent negative tests allowing Coyle to be cleared for Friday's rematch against the Caps.
"It's unfortunate that I missed a game, but it could have been worse," Coyle said. "I could have been doing 10 days (quarantining), so glad it's over with and put it behind us and move on."
While the incorporation of these rapid tests are vital in terms of rooting out major outbreaks in the locker room before they get out of control (such as what transpired with teams like the Devils this season), these tests do run the risk of a few more false-positive results. Still, the occasional slip-up is better than running the risk of a team having to postpone a large slate of games due to multiple positive results. Better to be safe than sorry, even if Coyle had to spend a couple of days in his apartment.
"There were no symptoms or anything," Coyle said. "But being away from the rink for two days, can't go on the ice. I wanted to be ready for (Friday) night's game, so just trying to do workouts at home by yourself. I'm at my apartment complex and I can't even go in the gym there and do anything so I was doing bodyweight stuff in my house and try to get ready, stay in shape so I could possibly play on Friday night."
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