It’s almost unimaginable to think about the player Tom Wilson was upon arrival in the NHL, back in 2013. He was 19, a first-round pick just the year before. He was good enough to stick with the Washington Capitals but not advanced enough to play more than eight minutes a night. Most of his peers were in junior hockey, and he was walking into new arenas from coast to coast before he could legally buy a beer.
“There were a couple coaches at the time, a couple mentors, who were always saying, ‘You’ve got to do something every night where it makes it hard for them to take you out of the lineup,’” Wilson said Thursday. “Whether that was a fight or a goal or a check or whatever, I just tried to leave my impact in that small sample size.”
We now have a large sample size on Tom Wilson, who no longer scraps for ice time, who no longer needs to fight to stay in the lineup. And as the Capitals opened training camp Thursday in Arlington, it became apparent that the 29-year-old who is entering — get this — his 11th NHL season is perhaps their most important character, not just now but going forward.
Yes, this is still Alex Ovechkin’s team, and it will be until the Great 8 passes Wayne Gretzky for the most goals all-time, grabs a cane and hobbles into the Russian sunset. Nicklas Backstrom and John Carlson have more games and more history. Evgeny Kuznetsov is the mercurial wild card whose production — or lack thereof — will help determine whether this old core can return to the playoffs or be a factor there.
Wilson? By now, he’s the constant, a rock. It’s hard to say what’s more noticeable: the impact Wilson has on the entire Capitals lineup when he plays or the gaping hole that is revealed when he’s out. More than that, after signing a seven-year, $45.5 million deal that kicks in next season, he is the bridge between the Ovechkin Era and whatever lies in the wilderness beyond.
“It’s hard thinking that far into the future,” Wilson said. “I’m really happy with the leadership group we have here now. I don’t want to think about when that’s not going to be the same.”
Understood. So we’ll do the thinking for you, Tom. Whenever Ovechkin retires — and his current contract runs through 2025-26, when Wilson will have five more years — the Capitals’ 'C' will go from above the heart of No. 8 to above the heart of No. 43.
“He has a good presence,” General Manager Brian MacLellan said. “He brings leadership. He brings character. He does the right things off the ice. I think the whole package of that combined with the way he plays. He’s elite in conditioning. Comes to work every day the right way. A good example for our young guys, and he’s a good player.”
Plus, when it came to the summer before his current contract was up, Wilson was direct to both his agent and MacLellan: I want to be a Capital. Make it happen. No negotiating during the season. No worrying about the trade deadline. No lame-duck year.
“I just wanted to be here,” he said. “I wasn’t going to play hardball. I wasn’t going to say, ‘Hey, I might test the market.’ That’s not my style. I wanted to be here in D.C.”
Man, that’s the kind of stuff fans love to hear. It helps that Wilson means it. It helps more that the teenager who fought for his eight minutes a night is now a multifaceted force who has to be accounted for by the other team. He is immovable from the top of the lineup, has spent seasons at a time playing the right wing opposite Ovechkin on the left and will some day be able to show the youngest up-and-comers how to be a pro because he learned it on the fly, too, all while developing a deep and varied game.
“What is so striking about him,” said Carlson, the veteran defenseman, “is how much he’s improved.”
This is a guy who could have been pigeonholed as a physical down-the-lineup forward, a modern-day tough guy who would spend his career protecting others. In his first four seasons, he managed 69 points and racked up 619 penalty minutes — less than a quarter of a point each time out, with just a hair under two minutes in the box every night.
Now? When new coach Spencer Carbery flips on tape, he is drawn not to Wilson’s size but to his skill.
“Everybody thinks about the physicality and the strength and the power,” Carbery said. “He made three or four touch plays off the wall that some of the best players in the world …” and he trailed off, almost at a loss.
“It’s world-class plays, under pressure, off the yellow [at the base of the boards],” Carbery continued. “There’s a prime example of how unique his skill set is. And, frankly, how valuable he is.”
That shows in production, sure, because in the past five seasons, Wilson is up to two-thirds of a point per game while his penalty minutes have dropped to 1.7 an outing. If he plays 80-ish games this year, mark him down for 20-something goals, plus time on the penalty kill and the power play. And yet numbers don’t come close to fully capturing how and why he’s important.
“People always say, ‘This guy creates space,’ ” Carlson said. “Well, that’s not true, usually. But for him, it is. As a defenseman, it changes the way you go back and get a puck. You’re reading everything: Where am I? Do I have to be the guy to the puck? Do I have time to beat him to the puck? And if it’s him coming, that’s another factor.”
The Capitals have a mixed history with contracts that extend into a player’s late 30s. Ovechkin, who turned 38 this month, is holding up as he pursues Gretzky. Backstrom, who turns 36 in November, seems certain to be a victim of the hip issues that cost him most of last year and have severely limited his production. Carlson, 33, needs to rebound from a season that was mostly lost to a freak puck-to-the-face injury. T.J. Oshie, who turns 37 in December, has missed 62 games the past two seasons with all manner of injuries.
Wilson will turn 37 during the final year of his contract and is himself coming off a season that he began on the shelf after surgery to repair a blown-out knee. But as camp for his — again, this seems staggering — 11th season opens, he is full go. About a year after his operation, the creakiness and soreness was gone, and the explosiveness returned.
“It was kind of like a switch flipped,” Wilson said. “I felt more like myself.”
That is exactly who the Capitals want around. To help return to the playoffs. To help Ovechkin to Gretzky’s mark and beyond. And to navigate whatever lies beyond that.
“He’s a true pro that got what was definitely deserved,” Carlson said, “and I think that they value him like they should — because he’s a unicorn.”
