NHL’s lack of action forced Rangers’ hands
Maybe this is what the NHL wanted. I haven’t seen the ratings for Wednesday’s nationally televised matchup between the New York Rangers and Washington Capitals, but it wouldn’t be surprising if there was an uptick. The threat of violence tends to draw eyeballs.
From the moment the puck dropped, that’s exactly what the league got.
It wasn’t pretty — very few quality punches were landed — but the Rangers did what they felt they had to do.
The final tally was six fights in the opening five minutes, including three the moment the game began. The Rangers sent fourth-liners Colin Blackwell, Phil Di Giuseppe and Kevin Rooney — none of them known for their fighting prowess — out to do the dirty work and send a message.
The NHL had an opportunity to send the message themselves. They witnessed Capitals bully Tom Wilson sucker-punch a defenseless Pavel Buchnevich on Monday and attempt to do even more damage to Artemiy Panarin, ripping the star forward’s hair and bodyslamming him to the ice to end his season. It could have been worse, with Panarin’s head nearly taking the burnt of the slam.
But rather than issue a penalty that would have taught Wilson, who’s already been suspended five times in his career, a real lesson and let the rest of the league know that type of vicious behavior is unacceptable, they issued a $5,000 fine — pocket change for a player who makes over $5 million per season.
The Rangers were livid, issuing a statement on Tuesday in which they deemed Wilson “dangerous and reckless” and called the NHL’s head of player safety, George Parros, “unfit to continue in his current role.”
Forward Ryan Strome summed it up this way.
“As players, you want the league to have your back in those situations,” he said Tuesday. “I think a lot of guys in our dressing room just feel like they didn’t.”
Since the league didn’t hold up its end of the bargain, the Rangers were obliged to, as Strome put it, “take matters into their own hands.” They’ve openly admitted that they don’t have any enforcers on the team, but it’s long been tradition in hockey for players police themselves. I’m not in the camp that believes fighting should be banned altogether. I understand the history behind it and how it can add passion to the game when it occurs in the heat of the moment.
But what happened in Wednesday’s game — an otherwise uneventful 4-2 loss for the Rangers — didn’t happen organically. It was forced and predetermined, borne out of frustration because Wilson was back on the ice without facing any real repercussions.
It was a charade that drew attention to the league for all the wrong reasons.
Not only did the fourth-liners engage the Capitals, along with Brendan Smith seeking revenge by dropping the gloves and chasing down Wilson, but Anthony Bitetto and Ryan Strome also picked fights in the opening minutes. (Wilson, by the way, left the game late in the first period with an upper-body injury, although it’s unclear what caused it.)
“You guys watched what happened the game before,” Smith said. “I don’t really want to touch on it too much. I think it’s been exhausted already, but I think that I had no beef with anybody else on their team. I thought that it should have been handled before this game, and it wasn’t so. Unfortunately, it had to be kind of on my shoulders, and I thought I took it.”
It’s admirable that Smith and others had the guts to stand up for their teammates, especially considering most of them lack fighting experience. But it’s unfortunate they had to put themselves at risk in a situation that didn’t offer much of a choice.
Had the NHL’s Department of Player Safety done its job — you know, protecting the players — the embarrassing display would have never happened.
Now that it’s been established that Wilson’s outburst won’t even result in a suspension, the precedent is set. Players can injure their opponents after the whistle and only face a measly fine.
It’s only a matter of time before someone gets seriously hurt. And what will the NHL say when that happens?
They’ll only have themselves to blame for not doing the right thing when they had the chance.
‘It says a lot about us’With all the Rangers have been through this season — incredibly, this story hasn’t even touched on the shocking firings of team president John Davidson and general manager Jeff Gorton (there will be plenty more to come on that) — a strong sense of camaraderie has emerged.
That was especially evident Wednesday.
While they were under-manned on the ice, missing key players in Panarin, Chris Kreider, Ryan Lindgren and Jacob Trouba, the remaining players emanated a feeling of pride in their response to the NHL’s lack of action. The Rangers knew they were being called soft for not going after Wilson on Monday and sought out to defend their collective honor.
“There was a group of guys – I think most of the guys that fought today – that were pretty disappointed,” Strome said. “Obviously, we would have liked to respond in the previous game, but I feel like you’re a bit shell-shocked when something like that happens. It’s tough, so having a day to think about it, I think the guys that wanted to step up did.”
Coach David Quinn said he didn’t know about the players’ plan to drop the gloves as soon as the puck dropped, but he viewed it as a sign that they “care for each other.”
“When you play for each other and you do things that are unselfish and do things for other people, there’s no better feeling in sports,” he added. “That’s kind of what overtook the room. As much as it’s about winning and losing the fights, it’s about creating unity and making sacrifices and being a team.”
This turbulent season has featured it all. There was the postgame altercation that led to Tony DeAngelo’s exile, Panarin’s sudden leave of absence, the coaching staff coming down with COVID-19 — and that’s just scratching the surface.
It’s been exhausting and distracting, testing this young group’s ability to handle adversity over and over again.
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