An unnecessary check to the head by Washington Capitals forward Tom Wilson that sent Bruins defenseman Brandon Carlo to the hospital Friday night sparked immediate outrage from the Boston side of the ice, with Brad Marchand saying minutes later in a NESN intermission interview: “That was a bull**** hit.”
Capitals coach Peter Laviolette saw things differently, however, saying after the game that he didn’t think there was anything illegal about Wilson’s contact.
“I saw the hit. I mean his feet were on the ice, he stayed down with everything,” Laviolette said. “Just looked like a hard hit in the corner, but I'm not sure what happened. But to me it looked like just a hit.”
When asked after the game if he or the team had received any indication that the league would want to talk to Wilson about the hit on Carlo, Laviolette quickly answered, “No.” Wilson did not speak to the media after the game.
Bruins players and coach Bruce Cassidy did not share Laviolette’s view.
“From my view I thought it was a shoulder to the head,” Bruins captain Patrice Bergeron said. “After talking to the refs, they think otherwise. They said they saw it in between periods, and they think otherwise.”
Cassidy said the contact “clearly looked like to me he got him right in the head. Defenseless player. Predatory hit from a player that’s done that before. I don’t understand why there wasn’t a penalty called on the ice.”
Wilson’s hit will be reviewed by the NHL’s Department of Player Safety to determine whether the check in fact broke the NHL’s rule that disallows a hit where “the head is targeted and/or the principle point of contact.” Wilson has escaped suspensions on similar hits before, oftentimes with explanations by the league that either the player put his own head in harm's way or that contact didn't occur first to the head.
Nine days ago, Wilson laid a late hit up high on Pittsburg Penguin Mark Jankowski that received similar uproar but never resulted in further disciplinary action from the league.
Wilson has been suspended a total of four times in his career and his actions have been reviewed by NHL Player Safety on several other occasions. His longest suspension came after a high hit in the 2018-19 preseason that caused the NHL to suspend him for 20 games.
In the 2018 playoffs, he received a three-game suspension after a check to the face of Pittsburgh's Zach Aston-Reese which broke Aston-Reese’s jaw and gave him a concussion.
Before the Bruins spoke to the press after the game, Boston responded to the loss of Carlo on the ice. They scored three goals while Wilson watched from the box, serving five minutes for his fight with Jarred Tinordi. Trent Frederic also dropped the gloves with Wilson in the third period, when the Bruins had already dealt the Caps five goals and chased starting goalie Vitek Vanecek from net.
“Sometimes responding doesn't always mean dropping the gloves,” Bergeron said. “It’s also about how we play and how we react. And I thought it was a solid game all around from everyone.”
The Bruins and the Capitals will meet four more times this season -- twice in Washington on April 8 and 11 and twice in Boston on April 18 and 20.