The Rangers were eliminated from the playoffs, I guess there are some hurt feelings...
Childish statement.
Wilson has the right to defend himself, he was attacked by at least four players.
He was fined $5,000 for that Buchnevich facewash, this started the spectacle. Fair enough.
I guess my main issue with what Wilson did to Buchnevich was that Buchnevich was literally laying defenseless, face down on the ice. This is very different than all those times Mike Tyson "face washed" guys in the ring. Face wash... you can actually see the shock-wave from the punch go through Buchnevich's body. This is an ignorant thing that you've said. And what about Buchnevich's right to defend himself? If he's helpless, shouldn't that fall on his teammates? Panarin did what any good person should do, and stepped in to help someone that needed it. I understand why Capitals teammates aren't trying to stop Wilson, but quite frankly, someone on that team should have a discussion with him. I'm someone that has always cheered for the Caps, and almost always cheered against the Rangers, and even I can see Wilson's actions were clearly not right, at all.
The lack of consistency and clear guidelines from the NHL has become extremely troubling, and people are getting injured because of it. Some of those injuries have had lifelong effects. With this decision they basically just said "you won't get suspended if you punch prone players in the head and bodyslam players by their hair, as long as it's after the whistle." I love hockey, and have always been a fan of the NHL, but I'm a bit disturbed by this decision. With all of the mishandling of player safety I have seen from the league, I have no intention of getting my kids deep enough into hockey that they'll even be able to consider turning pro. Lets let it just be a game where psychotic actions with the intent (and capacity) to injure aren't taken.