Big guys delivering big impact in Cup final
Wilson, Reaves find spotlight with effort and controversial hits in series opener
Tom Wilson watched the hit over again, several times, and saw nothing wrong with what he did.
“Clean hit,” he declared about his blind-side collision with Jonathan Marchessault in the third period of Game 1 of the Stanley Cup final. “It’s a hard hit, but it’s within the rules. Obviously after the game, I had a look at it. My feeling didn’t change after watching it. In slow motion or whatever. It was a good hit.”
Ryan Reaves watched the replay of his goal after Game 1, probably saw the cross-check that knocked John Carlson to the ice, liked the play, declared nothing wrong with it.
“That’s not within the rules,” said Wilson, disagreeing after his Washington Capitals let a thirdperiod lead slip away in the series opener.
This is where this unusual final finds itself after one game played. An exuberant game, but not a pretty one. A frenetic game, but not one in which either side felt good about their performance. And in an NHL that is now so much about speed and precision and skill and more speed, the biggest and sometimes most controversial players on either team wound up in unlikely positions of prominence.
Wilson is not Brad Marchand. He doesn’t kiss anybody. He doesn’t lick anyone. He doesn’t have the kind of skill that will place him among the league’s elite scorers. But he plays with an edge, with nerve and with an intimidating physical presence in a game that has lost some of that over time.
He is a giant of a throwback just finding his stride as a pro, an unlikely first-line player alongside the hugely skilled Alexander Ovechkin and Evgeny Kuznetsov. It seems an odd place to find a player of Wilson’s limitations, but he has slid in almost perfectly between hits that are questioned and debated on television and social media, in between a suspension he took hard and thought was far too long.
Wilson scored in Game 1, knocking in an Ovechkin rebound. He has 13 points and a playoff-leading 79 hits, and at least four times, maybe five, there has been a conversation about the legality and sense of his actions and whether supplemental discipline would be coming.
“When did this become a thing ?” Wilson said, asking the question and asking it with some honesty. “I don’t know why so much of this has got so much media attention, to be honest. It was a hard hit, but that’s the day and age we’re in. We look at those again. You guys are trying to do your job. I’m trying to do mine. Let’s leave it at that.”
The Golden Knights did not like the hit on Marchessault. They thought it was an unnecessary assault. David Perron, not on the ice, jumped over the bench to go at Wilson. Normally, that would get him in some kind of trouble. But these aren’t necessarily normal times.
The Knights felt Wilson should have been penalized for interference. It wasn’t a hit to the head. The NHL made the right choice in not having any kind of hearing or suspension.
But just as the Knights didn’t like the hit by Wilson, the Caps had every reason to be furious over the goal by Reaves. He was in front of the Washington net. It’s not a place you will find Reaves often. He didn’t score a single goal in 21 games with Vegas after being traded there.
Reaves pulled an old Todd Bertuzzi trick. Just before getting the puck, he cross-checked defenceman John Carlson. Carlson went down. The puck went right to Reaves’ stick and almost immediately into the Washington goal, like he knew what he was doing. In eight seasons as an NHL forward, Reaves has scored just 31 times. In his 36 playoff games before this season, he scored once.
Washington believed the goal should not have counted and Vegas should have been killing a penalty. Game 1 changes dramatically, first on the interpretation of that call, later on the interpretation of the Wilson call.
It was a hard hit, but that’s the day and age we’re in . ... You guys are trying to do your job. I’m trying to do mine. Let’s leave it at that.
But you can understand the Caps’ frustration. They led 4-3. They had momentum on their side. Having a one-goal lead and then a power play is a whole lot different than being tied 4-4 with momentum shifting in the direction of the Golden Knights.
This is a rare Stanley Cup final. Vegas is new and fast, very fast, and very quick in transition. Washington is thick and skilled and very strong down the middle with Kuznetsov, Nick Backstrom and Lars Eller. After Game 1, though, it the was big guys, the guys who aren’t supposed to be fast enough or skilled enough, the guys some might consider dinosaurs, who were in the dirty areas doing the dirty things, and were causing enough confusion for officials to be second-guessed a day later. This is Wilson’s hockey life now. This is how Reaves has to play. Big bodies trying to make big differences in the championship series.
“I’m not out there trying to hurt anybody,” Wilson said. “I’m out there playing the sport the way it’s meant to be played. I trust myself. It’s a fast game. When you’re flying around out there, there’s going to be collisions and guys are going to get hurt.”