Washington Capitals forward Tom Wilson has been suspended seven games by the NHL’s Department of Player Safety for boarding Boston Bruins defenceman Brandon Carlo.
Wilson will forfeit $311,781.61 in salary which will go to the NHL Players’ Emergency Assistance Fund.
The hit came with 90 second left in the first period of Friday night’s game when Wilson hit Carlo’s head into the glass with a high check in the corner behind the Bruins net. Carlo immediately grabbed his head after the hit, was slow to get up and had to be helped off the ice after several minutes.
No penalty was assessed on the play.
This will be Wilson’s fifth suspension since September 2017, the most recent being a 20-game ban that was reduced to 14 in October 2018 for an illegal check to the head of St. Louis Blues forward Oskar Sundqvist. He’s now been suspended for a combined 30 games (pre-season, regular season and playoffs) and has forfeited $1.291,456.39 in salary during his career.
Carlo was taken to hospital in an ambulance as a result of the hit, according to Bruins coach Bruce Cassidy, and was released early Saturday morning. After Friday’s game, Cassidy called Wilson’s hit “a predatory hit from a player who’s done that before.”
The Bruins retaliated for the hit by fighting Wilson a couple of times throughout the remainder of the game – Jarred Tinordi and Wilson fought in the second period and Trent Frederic squared off with Wilson in the final frame, which earned Frederic a 10-minute misconduct.
