Emotional Oshie hat trick makes up for embarrassing fight club early in Rangers-Capitals [VIDEO]

The whole New York Rangers vs. Tom Wilson saga has been something to behold. There isn’t usually this type of controversy in the NHL. Now we’ve got one player rumored to be responsible for clearing the front office out. So you knew when the Rangers and Washington Capitals stepped on the ice Wednesday night, there were going to be fireworks in the form of fighting.

It’s basically the movie Roadhouse but on ice. Check out the opening faceoff to start the game via CJ Fogler on Twitter. Love a good line brawl! These are usually reserved for Rangers-Devils games involving Cam Janssen and Mike Rupp.

Update: Oshie completes the hat trick! The Caps wing scored into an empty net to seal up a 4-2 victory on Wednesday night after a Tom Wilson fight club after puck drop. The emotional hat trick from Oshie was a great scene after the week he had, plus everything that’s been going on surrounding these two teams.

Update: Alexis Lafreniere got the Rangers on the board in the third to make it 3-1 but time is running out for New York. The Caps can move into a first-place tie (73 points) with the Penguins in the Metro with a win here.

Update: The Caps are out to a 3-0 lead thanks to another goal from Oshie and a goal from Nic Dowd. This has been a rough day for the Rangers. Gorton gone. Davidson gone. David Quinn may be next.

Update: Buchnevich has now been given a game misconduct after cross checking Anthony Mantha in the face. Things did not cool down. Things may escalate. Buchnevich is definitely getting suspended for that hit. Which is going to make for even more drama after he was the victim of the Wilson incident. Darren Dreger is already speculating the Department of Player Safety will be in contact with the Rangers.

Update: After the first period, the score is 0-0 and each side has 11 shots on goal. The penalty minute totals are too many to count for the Rangers? Brendan Smith got tossed with 17, Kevin Rooney also tossed after 15 PIMs. The Caps had 44 penalty minutes total in the first.

Update: Now, the Capitals are saying Wilson has an upper-body injury and won’t be back. Not entirely believing that, but it’s the right move by the Caps. Play hockey, enough of this BS fighting.

Update: American Hero TJ Oshie opens the scoring to give the Caps a 1-0 lead early in the second period. I think we can all feel pretty good about that, especially after what he’s been through recently. Here’s a look a the goal.

If you don’t know the backstory, let’s go over that a bit. Wilson was tossed from Monday’s win over the Rangers after multiple events. First, Wilson was seen slamming Rangers W Pavel Buchnevich into the ice when he was down after a scrum at the front of the net. Rangers LW Artemi Panarin then jumped on Wilson, who would later knock Panarin out of the game.

The NHL didn’t suspend Wilson for any of this. He was fined $5,000. It sparked a bit of uproar in the hockey community and the Rangers even released a statement on Tuesday, which was very strongly worded for a NHL franchise, basically saying how much they oppose the decision and called for George Parros to be relieved of his duties as head of Player Safety.

All that caused the Rangers to fire GM Jeff Gorton and President of Hockey Ops John Davidson earlier today. Chris Drury, former Ranger great, was promoted to GM and Glen Sather is going to oversee Drury the rest of the season. Apparently, this move wasn’t motivated by the Wilson situation. The Rangers had both personnel on the hot seat after “underachieving” this season. To be fair, New York did not have high expectations this season. The Metro is the toughest division in hockey.

Anyway, looking at the box score for Wednesday night’s game between the Rangers and Capitals, we can see things aren’t going to slow down as the game progresses. There may be fight all night. Here’s a look at the first period so far.

It’s only getting moderately crowded in the Capitals penalty box. The sin bin admittance may need to be increased tonight... Thank you, Emerson.