Capitals' Tom Wilson should be hearing from Department of Player Safety after ejection

Capitals head coach Spencer Carbery came to the defense of Wilson and tried to paint it as Vilmanis turning his body at the last second after Wilson had already committed to making a check. 

A lot of it is going to come down to whether or not the DoPS agrees with that assessment, and if it deems the hit to be on a player that was eligible to be hit. Vilmanis was no longer in possession of the puck by the time Wilson hit him. 

You also have to expect the Capitals (or any team) to come to the defense of their own player. And the Capitals have plenty experience having to do that with Wilson.

There are a lot of things working against Wilson here, ranging from the fact it was hit a on a vulnerable player in a tough spot, to the fact Vilmanis was injured on the play.

It is hard to know what this current DoPS staff is going to do given its inconsistency and haphazard approach to these things, but that's not a particularly good hit and is one that should be getting a review. 

Where Wilson is going to potentially face even more trouble is his past history. 

The DoPS always tries to argue that a player's past history do not come into a play until they determine a hit is worthy of supplemental discipline. The question always starts off with a simple question of whether or not the hit warrants a fine or a suspension. They remove the names, they remove the history, and they just look at the hit itself. If they determine that it does warrant further punishment, that is when the result of the play (an injury) and the offending player's past history add games on to any suspension. 

Wilson was a habitual repeat offender early in his career, eventually earning himself a 20-game suspension (that was later reduced to 14 games) for a preseason hit on Oskar Sundqvist back in the 2018-19 season. That suspension eventually resulted in him cleaning his game up a little bit. He has been suspended just two times since then, earning a seven-game ban in 2021 and a six-game suspension in 2024 for high-sticking Noah Gregor. That high-sticking banishment was his most recent suspension. The fact each of his most recent suspensions were more than six games would seem to suggest that if he does get a suspension here, it could be a significant one that might even approach double-digits. 

But the NHL has to actually deem the hit to be worthy of a suspension before it gets to that.