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| From NHL.com |
By Bob Herpen
Lost in the narrow 2-1 defeat the Philadelphia Flyers suffered at the hands of the Ottawa Senators on Thursday night in Canada’s capital was a play that took mere seconds to unfold but could have had drastic consequences for both the player and the franchise.
In the third period, with the Orange and Black trailing, winger/center Trevor Zegras was attempting to gather a loose puck in the area between the goal line and the top of the faceoff circle on the left-wing side. Defending Zegras was Sens forward (and Alex Trebek fave) Tim Stutzle.
As Zegras attempted to follow the path of the puck, he turned awkwardly – as an outfielder might when misjudging the path of a fly ball – and fell to the ice. Stutzle, unable to react accordingly and adjust his own path as Zegras fell, brushed the toe of his skate over Zegras’ left wrist.
The angle of the blade was not perfectly flat and flush. Thank the hockey gods.
A close call as a skate blade comes near Trevor Zegras' wrist, but no damage was caused. pic.twitter.com/rU6FDkGWtu
— TSN (@TSN_Sports) October 24, 2025
Zegras was acquired in the offseason from the resurgent Anaheim Ducks, a young talent in need of taking flight to new horizons. Before the weekend, he had yet to score this season, compiling five assists in seven games thus far, but still showing flashes of the brilliance – practice rapport with Matvei Michkov notwithstanding – which led him to compile career bests of 23 goals and 42 assists in a healthy 2022-23 campaign.
Limited to just 88 games the previous two seasons for the rebuilding SoCal franchise, the change of scenery to the East Coast offered a chance to put these troubled years behind him. Last year, it was a torn meniscus in his right knee and recovery from subsequent surgery. Two years back, a lower-body injury and a broken right ankle cost him almost two-thirds of the season.
Despite a 3,000-mile relocation, it only took seven games for the Devil’s magnifying glass to find him again, ready to fry him in the blistering sun like an ant. Zegras’ contract runs out next year, with an AAV and cap hit of $5.75 million.
We’d like to have him back in one piece, please.
For his part, after a tentative first half of the game on Saturday afternoon against the New York Islanders, Zegras shook off the cobwebs and registered two regulation goals -- his first with the club -- and contributed a shootout marker in the Flyers' eventual 4-3 shootout decision. He made the most of his chances, clocking in with a 66.6% shooting percentage (2G on 3 SOG).
I’ll say it once, then never again: can’t we have anything nice? Light a candle, put the lock upon the door. Break out the bubble wrap. It’s one thing to be stuck in a perpetual cycle of rebuilding, but who did we collectively anger that the spirits want to call down the thunder so often? Atkinson and Couturier. Ryan Ellis. Ristolainen.
Stranger still, despite twittering of the most mundane of circumstances night to night, the incident eluded every press box denizen of every major outlet which covered the game. You'd think a close call like this *might* pick up some additional coverage in Flyerdom alongside the "What's Wrong With Matvei?" chorus.
I know it's been happening more than usual. Jordan Eberle two years ago. Evander Kane and Jakob Chychrun this calendar year. Brock Nelson of the Colorado Avalanche just sustained a cut wrist in practice about 10 days ago.
I still can't shake the image of the first time a wrist cut sustained during NHL action received prolonged coverage: Canadiens forward Donald Audette dazed and shakily attempting to leave the rink while holding his limp and bloody left wrist in his right hand after Rangers forward Radek Dvorak's skate slashed it during a 2001 contest in Montreal.
The monster lurched around the continent for a while, but it managed to emerge from hiding and find the Flyers organization again.
On Apr. 7, 2013, prospect Eric Wellwood, then playing for the Adirondack Phantoms in the American Hockey League, did the job on himself during a game against the Bridgeport Sound Tigers.
Those of us around the franchise at this time thought it could have been more likely to happen to his brother, Kyle, who could skate like the wind but had immense trouble stopping and altering his course. Somehow, while skating his shift, Eric fell. Somehow, while falling feet first into the boards, his left skate crossed with his lower right leg, slicing through the protective sock and resulting in a nasty, deep cut which bled all over his skate.
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| Courtesy of Yahoo! Sports |
The damage was as significant as it was horrific: a partially-severed Achilles tendon and a severed artery, plus two less significant severed tendons in his right leg. Following two surgeries and time spent in a cast, Wellwood pondered his fate.
“I had six minutes before I bled out,” Wellwood said to the Windsor, Ontario Star. “My trainer (Greg Lowden) later told me you usually have four to six minutes before you have lost too much blood.
“Once I learned how close (it was) a couple of days later, how severe it was, it sent a chill down my spine. (I’m just) happy to still be breathing,” he added.
Wellwood, then 23, never played again.
In Los Angeles, and of all days on Apr. 1, 1978, the late, great Rick MacLeish almost made “the ultimate sacrifice” in playing Fred Shero’s brand of Flyers hockey.
Diving to knock down a pass from the King, MacLeish fell face first towards the Forum ice, where his neck was cut by the skate of future Hall-of-Famer Marcel Dionne. Escorted from the rink with virtually every available towel on the bench pressed to his neck, doctors acted swiftly to get the bleeding under control. The final tally: two gashes requiring 80 stitches to close.
Typical of the era, the seemingly-unperturbed MacLeish quipped, as reported in Full Spectrum, “I didn’t realize I was in trouble until I took a drag of a cigarette and the smoke came out my neck.”
MacLeish, the first of two certified snipers of that era, recovered and went on to play another six years, compiling another 103 regular-season and 21 playoff goals for the club.
And lest we forget, another soon-to-be Flyer is the reason the NHL in the mid-1980s switched from the World War II-model heavier iron nets fitted with a bar in the middle and flush against the ice to keep the puck from rebounding outward.
Just after Christmas in 1980, during a game between the Islanders and Hartford, New York’s John Tonelli drove then-Whalers defenseman Mark Howe, butt-first, into the protruding prong. The metal lifted off the ice, pierced Howe’s backside at such an angle that caused significant blood loss, but miraculously avoided penetrating anything more vital to daily function. It still took 3 1/2 years to officially remedy the situation.
Zegras was lucky, as a hundred other players in professional hockey over the decades have been on plays that end up being of little to no consequence. Until they happen and the ripples of the aftermath trigger deep consequence while affecting everything in its path.
Flyers fans, take a deep breath. And try not to think of what didn't happen.
