Nashville Predators defenseman Ryan Ellis narrowly avoided a disastrous injury during Game 1 on Friday night. During the opener of the Preds' second round series against the Winnipeg Jets, Ellis caught an accidental skate to the face in the third period. The scary moment came as he fell to the ice alongside Winnipeg's Ben Chiarot, whose right skate came up and clipped Ellis just under the left eye.
Ryan Ellis takes Ben Chiarot's skate to his face pic.twitter.com/8XKvqw7vhK
— Jeff Veillette (@JeffVeillette) April 28, 2018
The skate opened up a pretty good gash on Ellis' face, as evidenced by the pool of blood that collected on the inside of his visor in the aftermath.
These kinds of incidents are always incredibly scary and difficult to watch. We've seen some horrific outcomes from situations very similar to this one, but thankfully Ellis was able to escape without (relatively) serious injury. You walk away from that with your eyes and major arteries intact and you have no choice but to count your lucky stars.
And, as you probably imagined, it didn't keep Ellis out of action very long. He went to the locker room to get stitched up and returned minutes later. He'll take home a nice new scar as a souvenir from these playoffs.
