Miah Massaro | Sports Editor
With a little over 8 minutes remaining in the first period of the Washington Capitals vs. Montreal Canadiens hockey game on Saturday, Tom Wilson was struck in the face by a hockey puck by the deflected shot of teammate Jakob Chychrun.
As he doubled over in pain, Wilson glided back to the Capitals bench, holding his jaw on both sides of his face. He was very quickly ushered out to be taken in for examination.
"If that was me, I don't know if I'd be back in the game," goalie Logan Thompson said of Wilson.
"Honestly when it hits you, I feel like the side of my face is falling off a little," Wilson said. "I'm like, 'Am I bleeding? Am I cut? What's going on?' Then you just get into the room and you kinda settle down. ... Did a couple tests and was good enough to get back out there. It was a fun win."
Wilson, despite his cheek swelling up to about the size of a softball, made his way back to the ice after being checked out in the locker room and was able to secure the game-tying and game-winning goals.
Wilson partook in a post-game interview on Hockey Night In Canada, receiving the prestigious HNIC towel. During the chat, he finally got a first look at his face on the monitor.
"It doesn't look so hot," Wilson quickly noted.. "[But] my dad always told me, 'If you're good to play, you play.'"
“Yeah, if it was anybody else, I would have thought they’d be gone for the night,” Pierre-Luc Dubois said after the victory. “Tom, I knew he was going to — I didn’t think he’d be back that quick…”
Washington will fortunately have the day off on Sunday, providing Wilson with time to recover a bit. He noted that he's feeling better, but is aware that the plane ride back to D.C. might be a rough one.
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