New Jersey Devils Lucky Controversial Hit Overshadows Pathetic Performance

Coming out of the New Jersey Devils-Washington Capitals game on Friday night, everyone in the hockey world were talking about another controversial Tom Wilson hit. The Devils are lucky nobody is talking about how pathetic they’ve been on the ice.

When you put the words Tom Wilson and penalty together, people will talk for a long time no matter what. That’s because Wilson has trouble hitting people without doing it illegally. His latest victim was New Jersey Devils rookie Brett Seney.

Now, we will spend the next few days talking about whether or not Wilson should get suspended for this hit. We will opine with whatever decision comes down from the NHL Department of Player Safety. Some will think the DoPS is giving a know offender a pass for another dangerous hit. If they do suspend him, then some will cry the NHL is out to get Wilson.

One thing is for sure, they won’t be talking about the final score. They will not be talking about the fact that during a major penalty, the Devils got one shot worth a darn, and it came at the very end of the five minutes. That’s right, there was five minutes of power play action, and the Devils could not score once.

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The Devils were pretty bad for most of this game. The first period was a wash. The second was much better, but the only goal they scored was shorthanded despite spending a lot of time on the power play.

Sure, the Devils fought back. After going down 4-1 with nine minutes left, the Devils cut the deficit to 4-3. Unfortunately, the Capitals wasted no time making it 6-3 thanks to two empty netters.

Again, we should be focusing on how the Devils are throwing away this season, despite expecting Taylor Hall to re-up at the end of the season. This team is in last place, and it shows no signs of getting better. There are times when the team looks lifeless. There were rough games last season, but not like this. The effort level just isn’t consistent.

Yet, all we will talk about for the next few days is Tom Wilson’s hit. Luckily, Seney seems okay. So this fight about Wilson’s suspension/non-suspension is only about how many games he has to miss.