After nasty incident, Flyers will see Capitals’ Tom Wilson later this week

The buzz of the hockey world made its way into the Flyers locker room, but Kevin Hayes wasn’t prepared to give his reaction to the Tom Wilson melee. He said his teammates all were talking about it, but he hadn’t seen enough to comment.

Coach Alain Vigneault had seen the replays and chose his words carefully. The Flyers are playing Wilson and the Capitals later this week.

Wilson, Washington’s bruising forward, was up to his menacing ways again Monday night against the New York Rangers. He was fined $5,000 for roughing Pavel Buchnevich but received no extra discipline for tossing Rangers star Artemi Panarin violently to the ice head-first.

»Video: Tom Wilson attacks Buchnevich, Panarin

The Rangers on Tuesday evening said Wilson should be suspended indefinitely and that George Parros, the league’s head of player safety who handed down the punishment, should be removed for dereliction of duty. Whoa.

Panarin (5-11, 168) jumped in to get Wilson (6-4, 220) off Buchnevich, who was being punched by Wilson despite laying face-first on the ice. It was a scene right out of Slap Shot.

The Rangers’ Ryan Strome, who also was involved in the fight, called the lack of a suspension for Wilson “a joke.” Referees gave Wilson four minutes for roughing and a 10-minute misconduct.

Panarin, the Rangers’ points leader who was third in MVP voting last year, had a cut over his left eye. He will miss the final three games of the season. Washington plays at New York on Wednesday.

“To me, anybody in hockey — certainly everybody in our organization — is very disappointed,” Rangers coach David Quinn said. “We certainly thought it warranted a suspension. We’re just really disappointed. A line was crossed: Guy didn’t have his helmet on, vulnerable, he got hurt. To me, it was an awful lot there to suspend him.”

Wilson has been suspended five times for various infractions, including 20 games for head-hunting St. Louis’ Oskar Sundqvist in 2018. He was given seven games earlier this season for smearing Boston’s Brandon Carlo. As a result of that suspension, Wilson missed three games against the Flyers, all Washington victories.

That will not be the case here. The Flyers visit Washington on Friday and Saturday for their final two road games of the season.

“A lot of stuff can happen on the ice,” said Vigneault. “Obviously, I think a player like Wilson going after a player like Panarin and taking him down in the manner that he did: no helmet [on Panarin], could have hit his head on the ice. It could have been serious. The league decided otherwise.

“I’ll let the league handle that. I got enough issues here in Philly.”

Yeah, like two dates with Tom Wilson at the end of the week. Strome was right. It’s a joke.

Shayne Gostisbehere’s power-play goal on Monday was the 60th of his career and moved him past Behn Wilson for fourth place on the Flyers’ list for goals by a defenseman.

Mark Howe (138), Eric Desjardins (93), and Tom Bladon (67) are the top three. Ivan Provorov (50) might crack the top five next season.

Wilson, who played five seasons for the Flyers from 1978-83, is the last Flyers homegrown defenseman to be named to the All-Star team (1980-81).

Gostisbehere will be among the interesting decisions general manager Chuck Fletcher must make when devising the Flyers’ expansion draft protection list. If he chooses the option to protect three defensemen, would it be Ghostibehere (28, $4.5 million cap hit the next two season) or Phil Myers (24, $2.55 mil each of the next two)?

Deadline to submit protection lists is July 17. Seattle will select one player from each NHL club (except relative newcomer Vegas) on July 21.

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Jake Voracek, in his 10th season with the Flyers, darn near yawned when asked about moving into the club’s overall top 10 in career points.

“There’s a lot of big names, but if you’re at one place for such a long time and produce, there’s a good chance of that happening,” he said.

The notion that it came at a time the Flyers have no chance at the postseason tempered his excitement. When he was asked about the general feeling following Monday’s win, Voracek said, it “felt good, but the satisfaction isn’t as high as if we were playing for something.”

It was the best game of Alex Lyon’s brief career. He stopped 35 shots, including all 30 the Penguins fired at even strength on Monday.

But there was one save that was particularly mysterious. With 1:44 left in the third period, he swallowed up a shot by Teddy Blueger. The puck bounced off his chest and then, seemingly, disappeared. There was a brief stoppage as he checked his equipment, but the puck was never found.

After the game, he was dumbfounded but playful.

“I can’t confirm or deny that it got lost in my equipment,” said Lyon, who picked up his first win of the season in four starts. “I never found it, and I checked my equipment after the game. It wasn’t in the net. It wasn’t in my gear. So you are probably going to watch a YouTube video in 10 years of like NHL anomalies and it’s probably going to be on there.”