Teflon Tom Wilson strikes again against Artemi Panarin as the Rangers are eliminated from the pl

Publish date: 2024-06-22

The Rangers were officially eliminated from playoff contention even before their 6-3 loss to Washington on Monday night. Their tragic number was reached a bit earlier when Boston beat New Jersey.

And, yeah, this could be time for reflection on a hockey season, a fourth straight year out of the playoffs, in the fourth year of a rebuild, and what went well and what didn’t. And, yeah, there will be plenty of time for that in the next week or so.

But, of course, this is the National Hockey League, where a few cretins can just soil the league crest and steal the attention from, you know, hockey stories.

The biggest, filthiest villain of all — a player who over and over has sought out opportunities to injure opponents — struck again in this game, and he did so against one of the most gentlemanly (a very likely strong Lady Byng candidate), valuable players (he was a finalist for the Hart Trophy last season) in the league.

Teflon Tom Wilson, enabled time and again by the league, enabled by its absurdly named Department of Player Safety, enabled by its cowardly/incompetent on-ice officials, did it again, in a completely unhinged act of pure violence that didn’t even get him tossed out of the game. Actually, it was acts of pure violence, plural.

Wilson, if you’re not familiar, has been suspended five times by the league and fined, from what I gather, two other times — and been involved in dozens of other incidents from which he walked away scot-free.

In March, he got a seven-game unpaid vacation for a vicious head-hunt on Boston’s Brandon Carlo, who was hospitalized with a concussion and reportedly suffered from mood changes and blurred vision. Nice.

Oooh, oh, poor Tom was going to change. That’s what we heard from league-affiliated enablers, right?

Fast forward to Monday at the Garden. The last time the teams met, Wilson and Alex Ovechkin were screaming at the Rangers’ bench at game’s end. Early in the second period, Wilson needlessly reached from behind and punched Adam Fox, the Rangers’ smooth Norris Trophy candidate. Wilson served a minor penalty. The Rangers scored on the power play, and he was irate with referees Wes “Look at Me!” McCauley and Francis Charron.

Later in the period, with the Rangers having scored three straight goals to take a 3-2 lead, Washington took a too-many-men penalty. During the power play, there was a scramble in front of goalie Vitek Vanecek. Nothing unusual.

Nothing, that is, until Wilson arrived on the scene. Pavel Buchnevich was face down in the blue paint. Wilson fell on top of his head. (By accident, right?) Then, with Buchnevich’s face pinned to the ice with Wilson’s stick across the back of his neck, Wilson delivered a couple of punches.

Ryan Strome jumped to his teammate’s defense and grabbed Wilson from behind and some hell broke loose. At some point, Artemi Panarin was trying to pull Wilson from a pile. Wilson reached around, appeared to grab the back of Panarin’s hair, and body-slammed Panarin face-first into the ice, resulting in a gash and a welt. Wilson also delivered at least one punch to the face of the prone Panarin.

Incorrect. Pulled his hair and then slammed his head on the ground. Slow-no video, watch Wilson’s left hand pic.twitter.com/CLT1t2blSm

— dantelives13 (@dantelives13) May 4, 2021

Our fine, fine NHL officials gave Teflon Tom four minutes for roughing and a 10-minute misconduct for those assaults. They somehow took the clown show a step further by assessing a roughing minor to Panarin, who had two minor penalties all season, to go along with his 40 assists, hence the Lady Byng likelihood. Panarin was out of the game at that point with what the team called a “lower-body” injury. In fairness, Panarin has been nursing something for a while and didn’t participate in Monday’s morning skate.

McCauley and Charron, who watched this whole thing from a close distance, blowing their whistles, could easily have tossed Wilson from the game for attempt(s) to injure, for causing injury, for gross misconduct (hair pulling), or, really, given him a major and game misconduct for the deliberate “hits to the head.” Any of those. They chose to go double minor and a 10, and Wilson returned to the game.

Whether the Department of Player Safety thinks there was a breach of player safety here or not is anybody’s guess, because there’s no telling what they see up there on their big screens in Toronto and what they choose to see — or not see.

Here's the full #ALLCAPS Tom Wilson incident without interruption.
🎥 @MSGNetworks pic.twitter.com/ve9idR1TlX

— Here's Your Replay ⬇️ (@HeresYourReplay) May 4, 2021

(Editor’s note: On Tuesday, the NHL announced that Wilson has been fined $5,000.)

“Well, we all saw it, and there are lines that can’t be crossed in this game. And, to me, it’s just zero respect for the game in general,” Rangers coach David Quinn said. “You’ve got one of the star players in this game now who could have gotten seriously, seriously hurt in that incident. You saw what happened. And it happens time and time again with him. It’s just totally unnecessary.”

What can be done about it?

“Listen, the league’s been dealing with this (guy) for a while. I mean, that’s an answer for somebody else,” Quinn said.

Panarin’s teammate, Mika Zibanejad, who was also involved in the whole whack-a-mole scene, sounded dumbfounded.

“I figure you should have some more respect for the game and for the players,” Zibanejad said. “I don’t honestly know where to start. It’s just horrible. Zero respect.

“I don’t know why I’m surprised. Yeah, it’s just horrible.”

Panarin wasn’t seriously injured, Quinn said, but with three games left, his season could be over.

The Rangers’ season is over.

Wilson and the Capitals get to go to the playoffs. They play at the Garden again on Wednesday — and, no, the Rangers don’t have a physical answer or a weapon for frontier justice unless, perhaps, they call up big Mason Geertsen from Hartford — though that would hardly be fair to Geertsen.

Or the league could step up and do the right thing with this repeat offender, repeat assaulter, and let him sit for a while again.

Don’t hold your breath.

Thoughts

1. Quinn did loads of experimenting because of all the injuries, including the reunion of Panarin with Zibanejad — the original Bread and Butter — alongside Buchnevich. That left Strome centering the last two lottery picks, Kaapo Kakko and Alexis Lafrenière. Why not?

2. The Rangers had given Washington some tough times, six wins in the previous eight meetings, including a 4-2 record this season, before Monday. They knew they weren’t getting into the playoffs, even though they weren’t officially eliminated until late in the third period, when Boston won.

“Just another level of disappointment, really,” Quinn said. “We just didn’t get enough done this year. We had some great moments, some great stretches, but it just wasn’t enough. … We just didn’t play well enough for long enough to get in.”

3. Earlier in the day, though, he emphasized the importance of these final four (now three) games. Unfortunately for the young Rangers, they are decimated with the losses of three hard players: Jacob Trouba, Ryan Lindgren and Chris Kreider.

“You learn about people every day,” Quinn said about the evaluation that is ongoing despite the math. “Certainly in situations like this, you learn an awful lot about people. And our players know that. They know that regardless of what you’re doing, you’re getting evaluated daily. How people react to certain situations helps you form your opinion on them. So, they understand that.”

Last summer, after the disaster in the bubble, Quinn used the term “can’t unsee,” meaning you watch every player all the time. That said, he understands his team is baby-faced and now, likely, overmatched.

“Each guy’s had different types of seasons, but overall we’ve all seen the progress that they’ve made,” Quinn said. “It’s an opportunity to play important games. You play in the National Hockey League and we’re playing teams that are heavy, playoff-type teams, and that gives them a chance to get a better gauge of what the NHL is all about and the teams you’re going to have to play to win Stanley Cups. So these games are helpful for them.

“It’s very important. You want to feel good after every game you play. You want to make sure you give a good effort; you want to make sure you compete, and the winning and losing usually takes care of itself. … There’s really no more or no less. That’s the bottom line.”

4. There sure was a lot more room to play fancy hockey in this one than the previous two games against the Islanders, and Washington, though legit, is a much different opponent. And frankly, I do wonder how the Caps will defend in the postseason.

5. Igor Shesterkin was tested early. Then Vitali Kravtsov had a near-miss behind Vanecek … and Panarin and Fox hit consecutive posts, and Panarin got one more chance in close.

Smith took a penalty, and the Rangers had their hands full with the Capitals’ power play, even though Evgeny Kuznetsov and TJ Oshie did not play and Ovechkin had gone to the trainer’s room early and never played a shift. Shesterkin made a big save on Wilson and, with some help from K’Andre Miller and Fox, in particular, survived it.

6. But later in the first, Nic Dowd got behind Tarmo Reunanen and sent a shot through Shesterkin’s pads. A bit of odor on that one. 1-0.

7. Teflon Tom sent a puck toward the net, but it hit Kevin Rooney’s skate and went directly to a wide-open Conor Sheary, who one-timed it past Shesterkin. 2-0.

8. Zibane-jectory: With two minutes left in the first, Zibanejad scored the Rangers’ first goal in three games (144:11 worth of play, actually), taking a lead pass from Panarin, skating past Zdeno Chara and snapping a left-circle shot past Vanecek. It was his 21st of the season. (He had the five-goal game against Washington last season.) 2-1.

That's some Mika magic on the board for ya! pic.twitter.com/U0oDq033jo

— Rangers on MSG2 Tonight (@RangersMSGN) May 3, 2021

9. Daily Bread: Early third, Teflon Tom cuffed Fox from behind and our fine, fine NHL officials — who allow him to get away with 10 times worse on a nightly basis — called him for roughing. On the power play, Fox went cross-ice to Panarin, who went cross-ice again to Strome, who sent it back the other way to Zibanejad in the slot for a snap past Vanecek. 2-2. No. 22. Try that against the Islanders. Oh, wait, they did.

10. Kakk-O-Meter: Then the Lottery Kids took over. Miller (while taking a slash from Anthony Mantha) got the puck to Rooney, who sent out Kakko and Lafrenière a two-on-one against Chara (who’s literally older than both of them combined). Lafrenière made a cool move, waited for Chara to do a 6-foot-9 snow angel, then sent a perfect pass to Kakko, who toe-dragged it away from Vanecek and Nick Backstrom and tucked it. 3-2. Big-time goal-scorer’s goal. Timeout Washington.

Kakko and Laffy making it happen, you love to see it pic.twitter.com/M4HxC3WPKX

— Rangers on MSG2 Tonight (@RangersMSGN) May 4, 2021

11. Late second, after the Rangers wasted the Wilson power play and survived a too-many-men penalty of their own, they got lazy around the front of their net, with Smith, Miller and Kravtsov fishing for pucks after two Shesterkin saves, and Garnet Hathaway buried the third rebound. 3-3. It was starting to go downhill.

12. “Well, losing Bread for the rest of the game was certainly a big blow to us,” Quinn said. “We were going to go on a five-on-three, and not having him and Buch — who are regulars on our five-on-three — that certainly set us back on that.”

13. Early third, Smith coughed one up, and Daniel Sprong beat Shesterkin for an unassisted goal and the lead. 4-3.

14. Backstrom took a pass from Michael Raffl, got between Miller and Zibanejad and beat Shesterkin with a neat little backhander. 5-3.

15. And of course, Teflon Tom, who should have been thrown out of the game at the very least, scored the empty-netter. 6-3. By then the Rangers had been eliminated via the events in Newark.

16. Zibanejad briefly looking beyond these last three games: “We have a lot of young guys still developing and still trying to figure out the NHL and what it takes to play at this level and their own identity. And we have a group of older guys who have been through it, and we have a good mix. But it’s still a young group, still a lot of development left, and for sure it looks bright.”

My three Rangers stars

1. Mika Zibanejad
2. Pavel Buchnevich
3. Kaapo Kakko

(Photo of Tom Wilson and Artemi Panarin: Bruce Bennett / Getty Images)

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Teflon Tom Wilson strikes again against Artemi Panarin as the Rangers are eliminated from the pl

Thoughts

My three Rangers stars