Washington Capitals forward Tom Wilson was ejected in the second period after injuring Oskar Sundqvist with a blindside hit.
St. Louis Blues head coach Mike Yeo spoke to the media after the game and gave an update on his forward. Sundqvist has several upper-body injuries and was “not good,” according to the coach.
Yeo:
“He’s definitely hurt. Obviously, he hasn’t seen a doctor yet, but I would be surprised if he didn’t miss a decent amount of time here.”Concussion?
“He has a couple upper body injuries. He’s in a bad spot right now. I feel bad for him.” https://t.co/f78vlF9tpB— Tom Gulitti (@TomGulittiNHL) September 30, 2018
Yeo called the bodycheck “predatory.”
Mike Yeo on Wilson (via the lovely @SamanthaJPell): "It was predatory and that is what he’s done and he’s done that against us so that’s the way he plays the game and obviously again, like I said, we’ll see what the league does.”
— Isabelle Khurshudyan (@ikhurshudyan) September 30, 2018
Wilson hit Sundqvist in the shoulder and the head with a big hit in the middle of the ice. The young player had several cuts open on his face and was seen bleeding as he left the ice.
In their own locker room, the Capitals opted to not make Wilson available to the media.
The Capitals did not make Tom Wilson available to media after the game.
— Isabelle Khurshudyan (@ikhurshudyan) September 30, 2018
Meanwhile, head coach Todd Reirden was interested in how the league would judge the hit.
Capitals coach Todd Reirden on Tom Wilson’s hit: “It will be interesting to see how the league looks at it.”
— Chris Kuc (@ChrisKuc) September 30, 2018
“I think lots has changed in the league since the time I’ve played and even in the last five years in terms of things players are doing to protect themselves and not protect themselves when they have the puck,” Reirden said. “That’s what makes it a tough one for me because the player has the puck and [Wilson] comes into the defensive zone and systematically being in position that incident occurs. That’s out of my hands now and it’s up to the league and we’ll go from there.”
Reirden added, “I don’t really comment any further on if it was smart or not.”
Wilson could face supplemental disciple ahead of the Capitals season opener on Wednesday. The Capitals forward was suspended four preseason games, two regular season games, and three playoff games last season.
