Zednik Recovering After Surgery

If anyone missed it over the weekend, Richard Zednik of the Panthers took a skate to the neck in their game against Buffalo. The skate in question actually came from teammate Olli Jokinen who was upended in the corner and managed to catch Zednik with his skate blade on the way to the ice.

Zednik was able to skate to the bench after the initial incident where they were able to stop the bleeding. Although the game was stopped for 15 minutes while crews "scraped the blood off the ice". No doubt a pretty scary moment for everyone involved. According to the Panthers website Zednik underwent surgery yesterday to close the laceration and is resting following the operation in Buffalo.

Although these things happen surprisingly seldom they do occasionally occur. There have been a couple such injuries over the last couple of years in the minor leagues and of course the Malarchuk incident in the NHL about 20 years ago. Thankfully things didn't turn out worse for Zednik who has been on a tear of late scoring 6 goals in his last 4 games including notching his second career hat trick. The guys on Puck Podcast even named him as their player of the week on Saturday before the Sabres game. Hopefully he'll make a full recovery and be back in the not too distant future.

Richard Zednik, born in Slovakia, is a 10 year veteran of the league who has spent time with the Capitals, Canadiens, and Islanders before coming to the Panthers this season.