#1 Tom Wilson
If you asked me to write this five years ago, maybe Tom Wilson wouldn’t make it number one. Maybe not even two years ago. But now with everything that’s been going on, from the fines, to the suspensions, and lack thereof, there is no player everyone across the league loves talking about or loves to hate more than Tom Wilson. Wilson lives rent free in many opponents heads.
Last season Tom Wilson led the NHL with 96 penalty minutes. Yet if you look at his career numbers, 96 penalty minutes was ironically the second lowest penalty minutes of his career. So if he’s in the box much less, why is he still a hot topic among non Caps fans for his “horrifying acts of violence”?
Tom Wilson wasn’t afraid to lay out the big hits yet he was still fourth on the team last season in that category with 105. In his career, Wilson has 1,702 hits along with 1,123 penalty minutes.
His offensive production has also started to increase over the last couple seasons. Like many of the core, Wilson enters a big season and will look to bring his A game on opening night against a New York Rangers team that added a bunch of enforcers to try to take him down.