The NHL’s hypocrisy on player safety has never been more apparent

There’s no question now that Tom Wilson should have been suspended for his antics on Monday night. After punching Pavel Buchnevich in the head while the New York Rangers forward was lying face down on the ice and ragdolling Artemi Panarin so badly his season ended on the play, Wilson came away from that debacle with just a measly $5,000 fine.

That’s quite literally pocket change for the Washington Capitals forward, who was slated to make $4.1 million in salary this year.

Meanwhile, in the fallout from Wilson’s lack of suspension, the Rangers fired the team’s general manager and president a mere 24 hours after the team posted a scathing remark decrying the decision. A convenient time to clean house for a team said to be “underachieving” this season, though conventional wisdom and the stats say otherwise.

Oh, and the Rangers were fined $250,000 for the statement the team posted on Twitter, one which NHL commissioner Gary Bettman called “unacceptable.”

Not only that, the Rangers and Capitals played a brawl-filled mess of a game on Wednesday, which saw Wilson leave after the first period due to an upper body injury and Buchnevich high-stick Anthony Mantha in the neck to the tune of… a one-game suspension.

At this point, you just have to laugh. Surely, the NHL’s Department of Player Safety is engaging in some sort of performance art where Wilson, the fire-starter of the blaze that has raged through the league this past week, got the lightest punishment.

And yet, here we are.

It’s more than fair to say that the NHL’s hypocrisy in regards to player safety has never had a grander stage than this. We’ve seen pushback on the league’s rulings in the past, but that was nothing compared to the cascade of dominoes that have fallen in these last few days.

Take Wilson’s $5,000 fine and compare it to the league’s latest two suspension rulings that happened immediately after. Philadelphia’s Shayne Gostisbehere was suspended two games for boarding Pittsburgh’s Mark Friedman, while Buchnevich got one for his high stick on Mantha up at the neck.

Both were undoubtedly well-deserved suspensions in their own rights, but coming immediately after Wilson’s fine — and given the pair’s lack of suspension history compared to Wilson’s laundry list — makes this ruling even more absurd.

To drive the point home even further, Wilson — the instigator here —  leaves this whole affair a mere $5,000 poorer, while Buchnevich — the retaliator — has to sit for a game and forfeit $28,017 in salary, nearly six times more than Wilson.

In case you were wondering, after Tom Wilson was fined $5,000 for roughing Pavel Buchnevich, Buchnevich will forfeit $28,017 as part of this suspension for high-sticking Anthony Mantha.

— Stephen Whyno (@SWhyno) May 6, 2021

The most frustrating part is that this all could have been avoided had George Parros, the head of the Department of Player Safety, given Wilson even just a one-game suspension. Or had the Capitals pulled Wilson before Wednesday night’s game in preparation for the inevitable onslaught that was coming. It’s highly unlikely the Rangers would have issued their rebuke in the manner they did, or that Wednesday’s game would have had nearly that amount of carnage if Wilson was given the bare minimum punishment.

Not only that, in the fallout of this whole situation, it came to light that weeks ago, Parros did not even want to suspend Wilson after he sent Bruins’ Brandon Carlo to the hospital with a concussion in early March. Wilson only received a seven-game suspension after Bettman stepped in.

As the dust settles, this incident seemingly hasn’t changed much league-wide. The NHL isn’t making modifications to the Department of Player Safety and in fact, support for Parros and the department as a whole seems to be on the rise.

According to TSN’s Frank Seravalli, who reached out to about half of the league’s general managers, not one believed Parros was unfit for the position.

“I don’t think what Wilson did was a suspendible act,” another GM said. “I think that statement is part of the problem with society right now. Everyone wants everyone to be fired. That isn’t how it works and that’s not how you do it. George has the worst job in hockey. On every decision, one team is happy and one team is pissed.”

It’s hard to understand, from a player safety point of view, why the upper crust of the NHL — from the Department of Player Safety, to the general managers, to the Capitals themselves — won’t be harsher on Wilson while doling out correct and just punishments to others. Wilson’s suspension history — he has five going back to the 2017 preseason — wasn’t even factored into this decision, as the league first takes into account the legality of the play before even discussing a player’s past transgressions.

Given Wilson’s long and checkered history with running afoul of the NHL’s rules, the league’s current system makes no sense and is, in fact, detrimental to player safety as a whole. It’s a system designed for parity for the common NHL player, to give everyone their fair shake should they find themselves breaking one of the NHL’s rules and putting another player at risk.

However, at this point, Wilson is not your common, everyday case for the NHL anymore. Wilson crossed into Matt Cooke, Raffi Torres, John Scott, Sean Avery, and Daniel Carcillo territory some time ago, and it’s likely that his only way out is through either extensive rehabilitation to change his ways (like Cooke) or being essentially suspended out of the league (like Torres).

No meaningful lessons were learned here by Wilson. In fact, it’s likely he got some positive reinforcement out of all of this, considering how he ended up losing just $5,000 at the end of the day. He punched a defenseless player, then tossed a much smaller player around — after his helmet had fallen off — in the ensuing scrum.

If this is the precedent that the NHL and Parros are setting here, what exactly is the point of having an entire department devoted to player safety? Clearly Parros and the league have shown they’re more interested in protecting old-school, supposed “tough” players like Wilson rather than actually making difficult calls that would make the game safer.