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Only the NHL can put an end to Tom Wilson's recklessness

Zach Aston-Reese’s Stanley Cup Playoffs are probably over. (Getty)
Zach Aston-Reese’s Stanley Cup Playoffs are probably over. (Getty)

The network cameras caught it.

A smile wide once he returned to the Washington Capitals bench, Tom Wilson had taken discernible pride in leaving Zach Aston-Reese prone and bloodied on the ice with his latest in a string of harmful hits thrown in the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

Wilson wouldn’t have known then that Aston-Reese was concussed and had his jaw broken by the vicious shoulder-to-chin contact, but has there been evidence to suggest the seriousness of the situation would have registered?

You be the judge.

Terrible optics, enabled by the NHL’s semantics.

Wilson’s capsizing collision on Aston-Reese, wherein which he targeted the head and clearly left his feet, was hardly an isolated incident. Rather, the Capitals forward has been trending toward this sort of concussive conclusion since the postseason began.

A stalking blindside hit on Alexander Wennberg of the Columbus Blue Jackets went unpunished in the league office. And then, one game before injuring Aston-Reese, a clean, though deemed incidental, headshot on Penguins defender Brian Dumoulin was considered unfit for a suspension as well.

Inaction from officials and the nuanced rules that determine what predatory hits are illegal and which aren’t kept Wilson on the ice as he continued to push the boundary for Washington.

And, to a certain extent, it facilitated what happened in Game 3 — which former NHL enforcer Dan Carcillo provided the meaningful and weighty context to with one tweet:

What’s also evident is that nothing was done on the ice to prevent Wilson from taking a path of destruction, and use unlawful action to help the Capitals build a 2-1 series lead.

You can’t count on the referees, who didn’t assess even a minor penalty on Wilson for his hits on either Dumoulin or Aston-Reese. And you can’t blame the Penguins, who can’t afford to act as vigilantes when the stakes are this high. Retribution is simply no longer an option in a league with more talent than it’s ever had, and where a cheap power play either way could easily wind up being the difference in a series.

All Penguins coach Mike Sullivan can do is continue to remind the NHL that it’s time to step in.

At some point we would hope that the league might do something,” he said after the loss.

Wilson has been issued a hearing, and the expectation is what he will receive a suspension for his hit on Aston-Reese — if not his entire body of work over the past few weeks.

But it shouldn’t have taken this long for the Capitals to suffer the consequences of Wilson’s actions, and until after they secured the advantage in the second-round series.

Or more importantly, for someone to suffer a brain injury.

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