All The Highlights A Blog Can Handle

It's not often that I post video highlights two days in a row, but you know a goalie goal will always get a video clip out of me. Today, though, we don't have a goalie goal to see. Instead, we have a couple of other fantastic moments that should be seen because they warrant a little recognition! There are some good stories that need to be shared that happened over the last 24-hour period, and there's one rather ugly incident that should have a player sitting out for a long, long time. We'll look at all of that today using video clips!

The First Of Many

I had mentioned on Friday that former University of Saskatchewan sniper Collin Shirley had signed with the ECHL's Allen Americans and appeared in their game that night where he recorded just two minutes in penalties. I had mentioned that I hoped Collin would have success with Allen, and it seems he's fitting right in based on this highlight he produced last night!

We saw Collin Shirley score a pile of goals in Canada West like that where he gained a head of steam before showing his soft hands to light the lamp! Shirley's first ECHL and first-ever professional goal comes at the 1:11 mark of the first period where he scored, unassisted, on Wichita Thunder goaltender Hayden Lavigne on May 2, 2021! How cool is that?

While Shirley didn't factor into any additional scoring or penalties in this game, he's now 2-0 with the Americans as they downed the Thunder by a 4-3 score in overtime in this game, moving the Americans to within five points of second-place Wichita with three games in-hand. With the conference being decided by points percentage thanks to Fort Wayne's lack of games played, Allen can make up some ground on Wichita as they welcome the 25-24-8 Tulsa Oilers to Allen, Texas on Wednesday before meeting with Wichita again on Thursday.

Those two wins would move Allen into second-place in the conference based on points percentage, so it's a big week for Collin Shirley and the Americans in trying to earn a better playoff seeding. HBIC will be cheering for the Americans on both days! Congratulations, Collin, on scoring your first professional goal!

The Solo Lap

Peyton Krebs has been an impressive player with the WHL's Winnipeg Ice in his time with the club, and his short stint with the Henderson Silver Knights showed that he wasn't going to be intimidated in moving up to a higher level of hockey. He recorded one goal and four assists in five games with the Silver Knights, so the point-per-game-in-the-AHL Krebs looked like he had a bright future ahead of him.

With the WHL gearing back up, however, he had to be returned to the Winnipeg Ice due to the AHL-CHL agreement for players under the age of 20. Krebs came back, though, and showed his true professionalism by playing lights-out hockey, scoring 13 goals and adding 30 helpers in just 24 games! In some games, he truly was a man playing amongst boys!

The WHL season has come to a close, though, and the Vegas Golden Knights wanted a closer peek at their first-round pick from 2019, so they called him up and he played in tonight's game between the Golden Knights and Minnesota Wild! Here's Krebs taking the solo lap as the rookie as per tradition in the NHL!

Gotta love how Krebs went out on the ice and got down to business! We weren't done with Krebs yet, though, because the rookie lap is one thing, but how about scoring your first point in your very first NHL game? Krebs can claim to be a point-per-game player in both the AHL and the NHL now because he got in on the scoring in today's game!

That is a big-league pass from Krebs as he goes cross-ice to hit Alex Tuch in flight, and Tuch finishes off the play with a beauty of a shot under the bar to give Krebs his first NHL point! Officially, the play sees Tuch score his 18th goal of the season from Peyton Krebs and Nicolas Roy at 12:20 of the first period as Krebs has a new puck for his mantle!

With Vegas and Minnesota meeting again on Wednesday, might be we see a Peyton Krebs goal that night? HBIC will be watching! Congratulations, Peyton, on your successful NHL debut!

Ten Games

Tom Wilson has been suspended on five separate occasions for spans of two games, four games, three games, twenty games, and seven games for extremely questionable hits on rather defenceless players. If you're reading this and the first thing that pops into your head is "But Teebz...", feel free to launch your internet-enabled device out a window. He's likely going to be suspended again.

Tom Wilson lost his mind tonight against the New York Rangers, and this one should cost him in a rather substantial way. I'm not talking a handful of games; rather, this one should require him to get anger management training before he can return to the ice. Here's the video, and I'll run down the stupidity below.

Can I just say I hate Craig Laughlin's broadcasting? Outside of Jack Edwards on the Bruins' broadcasts, this guy is the biggest homer on the broadcasting circuit. That fact aside, here's a breakdown of what is seen on the video above:

• Pavel Buchnevich falls to the ice in the crease where Wilson punches him once clearly in the back before Wilson is tackled by Ryan Strome to prevent Wilson from punching Buchnevich.
• As more players pile on, Wilson gets free and throws a fairly weak punch at Strome who is at the bottom of the pile.
• Artemi Panarin pulls Wilson off the pile which seemingly angers Wilson. Trevor Van Riemsdyk joins the fray as Buchnevich also re-engages while Adam Fox is trying to play peacekeeper in the middle of it all.
• Brendan Dillon and Mika Zibanejad join the dance, and that allows Wilson and Panarin to break off the scrum.
• It's at this point where Tom Wilson throws Panarin to the ice, driving his helmetless face and head into the ice, before punching Panarin in the face with his gloved fist while Panarin is trying to get up.
• Panarin gets pushed back down to the ice by Wilson as the two linesmen jump on top of Wilson to try and end his reign of terror on the prone Panarin.
• Zibanejad tries to get at Wilson as he's being held by the linesmen while Buchnevich does, but Wilson won't let go of Panarin who is trying to get up.
• Nic Dowd jumps into the mix to try and pull Buchnevich off Wilson.
  
• As the scrum begins to break up, Panarin almost gets to Wilson before the stripes skate Wilson out of the middle of the donnybrook. Cooler heads begin to prevail, but the damage has been done.

First off, there was no reason for Wilson to punch Buchnevich after he was already on the ground. That's just asking for trouble when you take a liberty like that, and Wilson had to know that. And since he does know that, he's the instigator for this entire melee through which the NHL's Department of Player Safety will have to sort.

Where this goes off is that Wilson instigated the fracas as I pointed out above, he took a swipe at Ryan Strome who was coming to help the defenceless Buchnevich, and he could have seriously injured Artemi Panarin who had come to help a defenceless Strome. What is it with Tom Wilson taking swipes at players who are defenceless and/or considerably outside his weight class? None of the players he punched in that one-minute highlight are even close to being classified as a roughian, yet Wilson punches three of them while they're down on the ice.

Four games and the entire first round of the playoffs. That's what he should serve. The Capitals have four games remaining in the season, and they're going to make the playoffs where Wilson should be forced to sit for the entire first round. Wilson's pocketbook isn't going to be ruined by the four games, but the Capitals will have to open the playoffs without one of their more relied-upon players.

Of course, the Capitals are 8-0-1 this season without Wilson in the lineup and they're 55-31-10 without him all-time, so perhaps the NHL suspending Wilson for this stupidity we saw tonight is a blessing in disguise for a team looking to win a few games in the playoffs. Regardless of those statistics, Tom Wilson's back to being stupid, and he should pay for that stupidity.

There's all the video from a fun 24-hour period in the hockey world! Congratulations go out to both Collin Shirley and Peyton Krebs for their accomplishments on the ice while Tom Wilson can spend some time wallowing in his own stupidity for the circus act he performed in tonight's game against the Rangers. My hope is that everyone is alright after that encounter, and here's hoping the NHL says "enough's enough" when it comes to those antics.

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!