Washington Capitals Awards: Hit of the Year

It’s time to look at the Washington Capitals greatest hits.

Unlike the goals and assists I discussed in my previous Washington Capitals awards, body checks are not counted on the goal sheet at the end of a hockey game.

In fact, they are much fewer and further in between during the average hockey game than they were even just five years ago.

However, body checks are still a part of the modern game and can still be just as big as they used to when thrown by the right person (and Washington certainly has the right people).

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A good hit can bring fans to their feet the same way a good goal can.

For that reason, they deserve to be praised the same way as goals and assists are…and doggone it, I’m going to do just that.

As per usual, I will discuss some honourable mentions before I introduce my personal opinion for the best hit of the 2019-2020 NHL season, thrown by a member of your Washington Capitals.

Just as a little warning – one that you should’ve seen coming by now – Tom Wilson shows up quite a bit here. Let us dive into the honourable mentions.

Wilson Trucks Larsson

Since I can’t really break these hits down the way I attempted to break down the goals and the assists, I think we just need to use different synonyms for someone getting smoked in the titles of the headings. The title of this section says it all. Tom Wilson absolutely trucks Sabres’ defender, Johann Larsson, here. This puck is in the absolute worst place it could possibly be for Larsson. It is coming at him, but it is still too far away to reach while Wilson is coming at him at top speed. It is like Happy Gilmore trying to grab the golf ball out of the alligator’s mouth without it biting his hand, or legitimately just standing there and waiting to get hit my a 16-wheeler. Completely trucked.

Tom Wilson Smokes Brett Howden

Again, just read the title. Here, Tom Wilson lines up Brett Howden as he foolishly tries to cut to the middle of the ice. This is just a situation where the player on the ice needs to know who is on the ice and where they are. In this instance, however, Howden was lacking this respective information. This is also a prime example of the fact that not all Tom Wilson hits are dirty, or even borderline. The guy can throw extremely clean and well-executed hits. This is shoulder-to-shoulder at full speed and one of the nicest hits you are going to see in a modern NHL game. For most teams, this hit might be the number-one hit of the season, but the Caps like to throw the body around so there is still another honourable mention before the top hit.

Bulldozing Lilja

This is one of those borderline hits I am talking about, but in the same breath it really isn’t. It is borderline because Tom Wilson threw the hit. It is scary how Jakob Lilja went into the boards after the hit, but the hit itself was a clean, shoulder-to-shoulder check. Where it becomes iffy is because how explosive of a hit it was and poorly Lilja went into the boards. He went into the boards head first as fast as he possibly could and, quite frankly, I’m just glad that he is okay. Things could have been a lot worse than they turned out to be, however, Lilja did get absolutely blown up here and I seriously doubt he will ever get hit this hard again in his entire career.

Well, after this Tom Wilson showcase (that probably could have included a few extra hits) it is that time where we get into the best hit of the year. This hit comes from an absolute beast of a man who has also been known to throw his body around when he isn’t putting pucks in the back of the net…

Alex Ovechkin Blows Up Jonathan Drouin

Jonathan Drouin is a fairly-skilled offensive player who has the ability to cut to the middle with the puck. In this instance, however, Alex Ovechkin just had him in the trolley tracks from the second he entered the Capitals’ zone.

Without even taking a stride, Ovi catches Drouin cutting to the middle and absolutely bundles him in, coincidentally enough, Ovi’s office. Ovechkin flattens Drouin so hard that Drouin gets up slowly and heads straight to the bench. He was out for 8 weeks after that with a wrist injury that the Montreal Canadiens claimed came later in the third period of this game, but it’s a little hard to believe that this jolt didn’t play a part in his long-term injury.

As it is clear to see, this list can pretty much be summed up in two words: Tom Wilson. Wilson is a bull on the ice who hits everything at full speed and that’s why Caps fans love him and other fans hate him. It is also the reason he gets in trouble quite a bit. He goes so fast and hits so hard and so often that he doesn’t really have time to examine whether or not his hit will be the cleanest hit he has ever thrown. At that point though, he has already committed.

This list also shows that, even at age 34, Ovechkin is still involved physically and in a big way. He, much like Wilson, is a guy who likes to go fast and hit hard, and to see him still doing it at his age while maintaining a 50-goal pace is nothing short of fantastic. Let’s hope the season resumes so we can see more of these two running around like wild men on the ice and crushing every opposing sweater that gets in their way.