Brendan Smith says there’s more to the Tom Wilson story that will come out one day
The New York Rangers 2019-2020 season will forever be remembered for the Tom Wilson incident. There’s been a lot of debate as to just how much it has affected the Blueshirts’ decisioning since it happened.
While some believe Tom Wilson broke the Rangers, I contend it woke them up and expedited some of the roster moves made this offseason.
One can’t deny that ever since Wilson sucker-punched Pavel Buchnevich and rag dolled Artemi Panarin the Rangers have changed – drastically.
From firing President John Davidson, GM Jeff Gorton and Head Coach David Quinn to hiring Chris Drury, Gerard Gallant, signing Barclay Goodrow and trading for Ryan Reaves this is a different Rangers team.
Yet, owner James Dolan hinted at a lot more than Tom Wilson for the moves. At the end of the season, he told Larry Brooks he had been thinking about it long before that happened. It’s more likely that late losses to the Islanders had a lot to do with bringing in Goodrow, Blais, and Reaves than just Wilson.
Brendan Smith says there’s more to the Tom Wilson story
In the aftermath of the Tom Wilson incident, the Rangers deal out retribution the next night with an opening light brawl and several one-on-one altercations. Former defenseman Brendan Smith, ow with the Hurricanes was the man who took on Wilson and had some interesting remarks about it on NHL Radio this weekend.
“I was definitely a little nervous,” Smith told host Dave McCarthy. “Tom’s one of the toughest guys in the league. He’s a heavyweight so that’s an interesting task for myself as I wouldn’t consider myself a heavyweight by any means. You just have to answer the bell.”
As to everything that led up to the fight and ensuing aftermath Smith laughed at it and said he may reveal it when he retires. Calling it something for Spittin’ Chiclets podcast, which is known for being an expletive no-holds barred show.
“To be honest, once my career is over, there’ll be more info that will come to fruition about the whole incident,” he said. “All I can say at the moment is that I personally wish the league handled it a little bit differently. I think that we had to take care of our superstars 100 percent and then it wouldn’t have hit the fan like it did.”
“Like I said, in 15 years when my career is over, there will be more things that will come up,” Smith concluded. “As of right now, we try to keep it a little bit closer to home and I’ll say how impressed I was about how everything was handled.”
Smith also relayed how proud he was of his teammates response to the entire situation. He even commended many of the Capitals players who had to fight because of Wilson.
H/T to Russian Machine Never Breaks for some quotes.
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