During his first shift against the Edmonton Oilers last night, Anaheim Ducks forward Teemu Selanne suffered a laceration to his left thigh, as the bottom of his skate blade caught his leg as he was falling down.
Dan Wood of the Orange County Register's Ducks Blog has the rest of the details:
Selanne suffered a laceration on his lower left thigh when a collision with Oilers defenseman Denis Grebeshkov resulted in Selanne getting twisted to the point that his right skate sliced his opposite leg.
"I knew right away that I got cut," Selanne said before leaving the locker room with the aid of crutches. "It was scary how much blood was coming out. It was all over. You couldn't even stop it."
A doctor on scene halted the bleeding and stabilized Selanne's leg but chose not to investigate the extent of the damage for fear of adding to it, Selanne said. The Ducks planned to take Selanne on a Friday night flight to Vancouver, and then send him to Anaheim on Saturday to undergo an MRI exam with their own medical personnel.
"The MRI is going to tell exactly if it's surgery or not," Selanne said. "It's just bad luck, but it could be worse. There's a bright side. That's how I'm going to look at it."
What is with all the recent skate-related injuries? Last season we saw Kevin Bieksa's calf, anything involving the words "Chris Pronger" and "stomp," as well as the not-for-the-faint-of-heart Richard Zednik incident in Buffalo. Not to mention a referee's blade grazing the face of Tampa Bay's Martin St. Louis just a few weeks ago.
Here's video of the Selanne incident, with multiple replays; including possibly the first use of a telestrator during a skate blade injury.