What's surprising about this? You can make Tom Wilson's big list of offenses, they're almost all hits within a few degrees of acceptable. There are a lot of them, because there are a lot of hits, but most of them hard and fast with a lot of moving parts.
What you don't see from Tom Wilson and do see from dirty players is a lot of excessive stick work, slewfoots, kicks, knees, etc. He's not a sucker puncher, he's a throwback, and hockey fans hate watching a guy like that they have no answer for. It feels so emasculating to them that they shriek about it now until the problem gets solved. They'd rather watch someone slashing people in and out of scrums and partially engaging like Tkachuk because they feel like if someone could get a hold of him they'd make him pay, and Tom Wilson isn't that guy either.
He got nothing but respect from league good guy Barry Trotz because, surprise, he's not a piece of shit but captain material. He's not a weasel who fractures locker rooms, he's a guy you win with. Moreover, he's a good example and not just someone you put up with. Some bad hits a year don't ou
tweigh that. You're allowed to love the physical game, you're allowed to love sports psychology and play the game within the game, but I've never gotten the impression from Wilson that he was bigger or more important than the team.
I think that's the easiest way to separate it, it took some landing on though. With the league's biggest shitbags, you get the distinct impression that their grudge is as important as the hockey game, and with Wilson it's almost always been abut his team and the hockey game.