Tom Wilson
“Maturity is often more absurd than youth and very frequently is most unjust to youth.”
-- Thomas A. Edison
Over an eight year period, from Canadian juniors to the AHL to the National Hockey League, Tom Wilson played in 490 regular season games and compiled 1,051 penalty minutes. Seeing as how he recorded 67 goals and 189 points in the same span across the same leagues, and it would be easy – convenient, in fact – to regard Wilson as a “goon” at worst, an “enforcer (in the hockey tradtion)” at best. We will leave it to you, dear reader, to find all of the Web sites devoted to these adjectives. A piece of advice – pack a lunch, you will be a while.
But in the midst of the unflattering descriptions that dogged Wilson over the course of his development, a strange thing happened. Folks discovered there was a real live, honest to goodness productive hockey player under the reputation for orneriness. It took a little while to present itself with the Caps, what with Wilson posting only 14 goals and 42 points in 164 games over his first two NHL seasons. But in 2017-2018, his hockey skills blossomed – 14-21-35, plus-10, in 78 games, plus another five goals and 15 points in 21 postseason games on his way with the Caps to a Stanley Cup. He had his breakout season in 2018-2019, posting his first 20-goal (22)/40-point (40) season, skating a career high 18 minutes per game, and assuming a heavier load on offense on the top line and on defense with a career high in penalty killing minutes per game (2:14).
The 2019-2020 was an opportunity to reinforce and solidify Wilson’s profile as a true “power forward” that combines a physical edge with significant contributions on offense and defense. Even though the season was cut short by 13 regular season games, that mission was largely fulfilled. He finished with 21 goals in 68 games (a 25-goal pace), he already posted a career high in points with 44 (1 53-point pace), he recorded a personal high of 154 shots on goal, and for the third consecutive season he finished with a shooting percentage over ten percent (13.6). And, he did it while shaving his penalty minutes by about a third on a per game basis from last year, from 2.03 minutes per game to 1.37, and by almost half from two years ago, from 2.40 minutes per game.
Fearless’ Take…
Let us for a moment think of secondary scoring. Not the usual consideration of whether bottom-six forwards are chipping in offense from time to time, but secondary scoring within a primary role. Tom Wilson’s role on the Caps for the most part is as the top-line right wing at even strength. He is not the star on that line, that being reserved for Alex Ovechkin and Nicklas Backstrom or Evgeny Kuznetsov, whichever happens to be centering that line at the time. But what this means are that Wilson’s contributions on offense take on a uniquely important role of their own. And, as his offensive game has emerged, so too have the impacts of those contributions. In 2019-2020, he recorded goals in 20 games, and in those games the Caps posted a record of 15-4-1. They were 23-8-5 in the 36 games in which he recorded a point. And it is the producing that is important, not the effort. The Caps were just 14-9-5 in the 28 games in which Wilson recorded at least three shots on goal.
Cheerless’ Take…
OK, we established Tom Wilson is a physical player, but the numbers reflected in that type of player are not always flattering. In the 13 games this season in which Wilson was credited with more than five hits, the Caps were 4-7-2. In seven games in which he had more than two penalty minutes, they were 3-4-0. It is worth noting that the Caps did not lose a game in which he was not credited with a hit. There were not many such games, mind you, but 5-0-0 is still 5-0-0. And, he had points in all of them. And while he plays important roles on both sides of the puck, there are limits. The Caps were just 5-4-5 in the 14 games in which he skated at least 20 minutes.
Odd Wilson Fact… Tom Wilson is the only player in the league who, over the last two seasons, posted 40 or more goals (41), 80 or more points (84), 200 or more penalty minutes (221), a positive plus-minus rating (plus-8), and an aggregate shooting percentage over 15 percent (15.1).
Odd Wilson Fact II… Tom Wilson and Scott Steven are the only players in Capitals history to post at least 75 goals and at least 1,000 penalty minutes with the team by age 26.
Game to Remember… November 7, 2019. When the Capitals visited the Florida Panthers in early November, Tom Wilson was looking to break an unpleasant personal streak against that opponent. In 13 career games to that point, Wilson had yet to record a goal against the Panthers. In fact, he managed just a single point – an assist – in those 13 games and had a minus-3 rating. Game 14 was different.
The Caps scored first, just 25 seconds into the game, on a John Carlson goal. But the Panthers tied the contest less than two minutes later, then scored again, and then scored again just 27 seconds into the second period to take a 3-1 lead. Alex Ovechkin scored a pair of goals later in the second period to tie the game, but the Panthers answered with a power play goal with just over a minute left in the period to take a 4-3 lead to the second intermission. The rest of the game belonged to Tom Wilson. He tied the game just 44 seconds into the third period when, off a faceoff, he circled off the left wing boards toward the net. As he did so, Evgeny Kuznetsov dug out a loose puck in the corner and fed it out to where Wilson was cruising. Wilson redirected the puck up and over the shoulder of goalie Sergei Bobrovsky, and it was a 4-4 game.
The teams took the tie to the five-minute overtime period, but the Caps needed less than half a minute to settle matters. Braden Holtby made a game-saving save on Aaron Ekblad at the doorstep just ten seconds into the overtime. The Caps quickly transitioned, and John Carlson led a 2-on-1 rush with Wilson. Jonathan Huberdaue was back for the Panthers, and when he stepped up on Carlson, the Caps defenseman fed the puck across to Wilson, who snapped a shot into the back of the net before Bobrovsky could scramble across the crease. Just 17 seconds into the overtime, the Caps had a 5-4 win, and Wilson had both the game-winning goal and his only two-goal game of the season (on only two shots), in addition to breaking his long drought against the Panthers.
Game to Forget… March 4, 2020. Games between the Caps and the Philadelphia Flyers have been rough affairs going back decades. Tom Wilson added his measure to that tradition in an early March game in Washington, albeit not with the hoped-for effect. The Caps scored first, on a Lars Eller goal, to take a 1-0 lead. With the teams about to head into the first intermission with that score, Wilson locked horns with Nate Thompson, earning a fighting major and an additional minor for roughing. The Flyers could not convert the advantage they were presented, but the second period belonged to the visitors. They scored three goals ten minutes apart to take a 3-1 lead. The Flyers pulled away with two third period goals, and Wilson took his second fighting major of the game in the last half minute of a 5-2 Caps loss. Wilson finished the game without a shot on goal (although he did have an assist), and his 12 minutes in penalties were almost as much time as he spent on ice in what was his lowest ice time of the season (12:19).
Postseason…
For Wilson, the postseason was bad, then good, then bad. He failed to register a point in the first two round robin games, against Tampa Bay and Philadelphia, recording only one shot on goal. He did record points in each of his next three games, a goal against the Boston Bruins and assists in Games 1 and 2 against the Islanders. But he was blanked on the score sheet in his last three games, going minus-4 in the process. The penalties crept back as well. He took at least one penalty in six of the eight games he played, 23 minutes in total.
Looking Ahead…
Tom Wilson has now satisfied two years of his six-year/$31.0 million contract signed in July 2018. That $5.167 million cap hit is considerable, and it resides in a competitive cohort. The 17 forwards age 24-29 with cap hits from $4.5-5.5 million include such names as Mika Zibanejad, Alex Tuch, and Yanni Gourde. Wilson’s ability to sustain the progress he has made in the last two seasons, and his ability to build on it, will be something to watch to see if that is a “value” contract or not.
In the end…
Tom Wilson is an important element of the next wave of talent that the Caps need to perform at a high level to ensure that these next few years – perhaps the last of the Ovechkin/Backstrom era – are competitive. One season scoring 20 goals and topping 40 points might be written off as a fluke, but Wilson has done it two years in a row and improved on his numbers in 2019-2020. Now, it is a matter of sustaining that level of performance and, if possible, enhancing it. It is the sign of the mature player Wilson appears to have become.
Grade: B
Photo: Claus Andersen/Getty Images North America
