Washington Capitals Delete Sleazy Tweet Celebrating Violence After Their Player Sucker Punched a Defenseless Rival, Viciously Bodyslammed Another

The Washington Capitals social media team did a brutal job of reading the room Monday night, adding insult to injury with a thoughtless tweet.

In a game where forward Tom Wilson threw sucker punches and body slammed Artemi Panarin of the New York Rangers to the ice, the Capitals followed it with a tweet celebrating violence.

And the Caps decided this was a good thing to tweet an hour or so later pic.twitter.com/4XPnbGvaTH

— Lachlan Markay (@lachlan) May 4, 2021

Following criticism, the Capitals deleted the tweet Monday night, but it was on display long enough to highlight their poor judgement.

Halfway through the second period, Rangers forward Pavel Buchnevich ended up on the ice near the net. With Buchnevich down, Wilson took the opportunity to sucker punch the Rangers forward, causing the skirmish between both teams. Wilson then got up and body slammed Panarin to the ice. Luckily, Panarin’s shoulder absorbed most of the contact, but his head was frighteningly close to hitting the ice, which could have caused severe damage.

With the playoffs right around the corner, late season games are intensified, but it doesn’t excuse the melee that ensued featuring the egregious actions by Wilson. And it definitely doesn’t excuse the Capitals using the fight as an opportunity to celebrate violence.

Despite occasional calls for fighting to be banned from the NHL, it remains part of the sport. But incidents like the one Monday night where one player put another’s life in jeopardy won’t do much to help quiet detractors.

Watch above via, NBC Sports Washington

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