Photo: Patrick Smith

Tom Wilson has a reputation for hitting hard, and not always cleanly. Late in Wednesday’s game against the Senators, Wilson checked Ottawa forward Curtis Lazar. The hit looked vicious, with Lazar’s head whipping sideways as he fell to the ice. Wilson was given a 10 minute misconduct and a match penalty for intent to injure. The latter would have resulted in an automatic one-game suspension. Wilson insisted after the game that he made a legal hip check to remove a player from the puck, which is clear when looking at the slow motion replay of the hit.

“I understand that I’m kind of under the microscope,” Wilson said yesterday according to Katie Brown of NHL.com. “The game as a whole is under the microscope right now.”

In this case, the microscope worked in Wilson’s favor. According to the CSN’s Chuck Gormley, Wilson’s 1o minute misconduct and match penalty will be scrubbed by the NHL, allowing the 21-year-old bruiser to play Friday night at Verizon Center. The Capitals were expecting the league to make this move.

“You’ve got to play the game hard,” Wilson said. “You’ve got to play the game right.”

In this case, he did both. The National Hockey League seems to agree.