Tom Wilson responds to his critics.

Washington Capitals forward Tom Wilson has dominated the headlines over the last several days after an incident during a matchup against the New York Rangers saw star forward Artemi Panarin suffer an injury that will keep him out the remainder of the season.

Although many figures within the National Hockey League didn't seem to take too much of an issue with the incident itself, it prompted a firestorm of outrage on social media that led to calls for Wilson to be suspended and even in some extreme cases for Wilson to be banned from the league outright. As we know of course that hasn't happened and will not be happening as a result of this incident following a ruling from George Paros and the National Hockey League's Department of Player Safety, but that hasn't prevented fans from calling for Wilson's head. 

In fact one could argue that the inaction from the Department of Player Safety is what led to several brawls between the Rangers and Capitals in the game that followed that controversial incident, and there's no doubt that it led to even more anger from an already angry NHL fan base. Until now however we have not heard from Wilson himself but in his first comments since the incident he has indicated that he thinks the entire think has been blown out of proportion.

"It seemed like a fairly routine hockey scrum to me, and I think that was kind of the feeling from both players in the box," said Wilson as per The Athletic.

Wilson also indicated that he has largely ignored the outrage from fans on social media, so all those fans who were hoping to spark a reaction out of the Capitals enforcer are likely to be sorely disappointed.

"The good thing about social media is you’re able to close it and go about your life and worry about playing hockey and worry about what’s going on in this room," said the Capitals enforcer.

As for whether or not he feels responsible for hurting Panarin? Although Wilson did confirm that he reached out to Panarin following the incident to check in on the Rangers star, he also made it clear that he felt he was well within his rights to defend himself.

"From there, you have guys jumping on your back, and I think anybody’s first reaction would be to just throw them off you and wrestle them down to the ice," he said.

It doesn't sound like the level of scrutiny he has been put under as a result of this incident will be altering the way he plays the game in the least, at least not based on his comments following the altercation. That being said though I would be shocked if the Capitals didn't have him tone things down a little in order to avoid any potential suspensions as they head into the Stanley Cup playoffs.