The Washington Capitals may have been dealt a terrible blow in these Stanley Cup playoffs, at least if one radio host is to believed.
Recently the Capitals were forced to play Game 2 of their opening round Stanley Cup playoff matchup against the Florida Panthers without the services of the aforementioned Wilson. Wilson had been declared a game time decision ahead of the contest, but would eventually be ruled out due to a lower body injury that the Capitals have been keeping under wraps. Now though rumors are beginning to circulate suggesting that Wilson is in fact not at all a game time decision, but could instead be done for what remains of the Stanley Cup playoffs.
The comments come from Grant Paulsen of 106.7 The Fan who on Friday expressed a belief that Wilson could be missing in action for the remainder of the Stanley Cup playoffs.
"No Tom Wilson is a disaster," said Paulsen of Wilson's injury on Friday. "And I told you yesterday, I don't think he's playing again this series. I've heard he's got a pretty serious knee injury that he's dealing with and it's gonna be a while. So, my guess is we've seen him for the last time — certainly in this series, maybe for the playoffs."
Although Paulsen would not disclose his sources for the information nor did he elaborate on the severity of the injury to the Capitals forward, he did make it clear that he was being fed this information by a source. One day earlier, Paulsen had spoke of a little birdy chirping in his ear about the severity of Wilson's injury.
"I think this is a 'hopefully this run goes long enough and maybe we can see what happens a few weeks from now' type of thing," said Paulsen the day prior. "Again, that's what I'm hearing. I'm not going hard in the paint. No reports. I don't need a bunch of people on NHL.com citing 106.7 The Fan. What I'm telling you is just a little birdie chirping, a little rumbling, a little thing that I heard. I'm not going to go into specifics or details."
It would seem that over the course of the last 24 hours Paulsen has grown more confident in the information he has been fed and is now calling this a "pretty serious knee injury." If he is indeed correct this could prove to be a disaster for the Capitals as Wilson is not only a core part of their offense, but is considered by many to be among the most physically dominant players in the NHL today.