The New York Rangers are not at all happy with the NHL, specifically George Parros who heads up the NHL’s Department of Player Safety. In fact, the Rangers organization is calling for the NHL to step in a fire Parros after he failed to do his job and recognize how dangerous Tom Wilson’s actions were on Monday night.
Parros failed to suspend Wilson on Tuesday, even though most figured a lengthy suspension was coming. Instead, he handed out a $5K fine — which means nothing to an NHL player — and Wilson will not miss any time. Meanwhile, Artemi Panarin will miss the remainder of the season after Wilson took him down to the ice on two occasions.
In a statement released by the Ranger today, they wrote:
“The New York Rangers are extremely disappointed that Capitals forward Tom Wilson was not suspended for his horrifying act of violence last night at Madison Square Garden. Wilson is a repeat offender with a long history of these types of acts and we find it shocking that the NHL and their Department of Player Safety failed to take the appropriate action and suspend him indefinitely. Wilsons’ dangerous and reckless actions caused an injury to Artemi Panarin that will prevent him from playing again this season. We view this as a dereliction of duty by NHL Head of Player Safety, George Parros, and believe he is unfit to continue in his current role.”
Needless to say, the statement is a strong one. That the team is calling for the NHL to step in and fire someone over this decision not to step up and make an example of a player with a long rap sheet for this kind of thing has troubled many, specifically the Rangers. Requesting someone be fired is no joke.
It will be interesting to see if other teams follow suit or if anything comes of this.
There is clearly people on both sides of this argument but perhaps it’s time the NHL step in and take a closer look at making sure these decisions on suspension are handled with a level of consistency that seems to be missing, especially when it comes to players who obviously haven’t learned anything from their past discretions.
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