Looks Like Tom Wilson Is Going To Get A Bunch Of Games
Look, everyone knows I’m a Tom Wilson apologist. He plays the game right on the line, and due to his sheer size, often times people think he crosses the line when he lands big hits. I try to look at things rationally- is the hit dirty, or is he just so much bigger than who he’s hitting that it looks worse than it really is? The league has even said as much. Wilson is the last of a dying breed of NHL players who finish hits and who will lay the lumber to a player skating with his head down Scott Stevens style, and it’s getting him in trouble. A lot of trouble. He’s talked to the league about what you can or can’t do. And the thing is, the league has no idea. The line is so small between “hard and clean” and “hard and dangerous” that nobody, not even the league office, has any idea. Sometimes they’ll think a hit was clean in theory, but the player on the receiving end got hurt so they call it dirty. That’s kinda an issue- they need to be penalizing the hit itself, not the outcome. Because the vice versa is just as scary, a dirty hit where the other player skates off just fine- you don’t get suspended for that, which invites you to do that sort of hit again.
The hit in question tonight was avoidable. You can look at it and say the point of contact was the shoulder, but it still wasn’t a great hit. I think Wilson just has to be like a safety in the NFL and pull up early and not even risk it. If a smaller player lays that hit, it’s probably not a suspension. Does Tom Wilson have to change his game because of his size? Probably so. Definitely so, actually, because he’s just going to keep on getting suspended. He wants to continue playing with an edge, but the league is moving away from that, and he needs to adapt or else he’s going to keep missing games. And you don’t want that to happen.
I think this blog is the most rational way to look at Tom Wilson. I think the NHL needs to do a much better job with deciding what is legal and not legal, and Wilson needs to do a better job of just not going for that big hit in situations where it might not be necessary. I hate it, I think it makes the NHL softer and it gets away from old school hockey, but I guess it’s a changing league and it is what it is. If the NHL is going to keep suspending him, he’s going to have to swallow his pride and change his game to a softer version. It sucks but it’s better than getting 6 game suspensions all the time.
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PS: Back to back preseasons Willy will be suspended for a big hit. Not the back to back we wanted, but alas,
