Jakob Chychrun did not participate in the Washington Capitals’ practice on Monday morning due to a scary skate cut. The 26-year-old rearguard suffered the “significant cut” to his wrist/arm in the team’s game against the Florida Panthers on Saturday evening.
After tracking a puck into the corner of the Caps’ defensive zone with 8:20 left in the first period, Chychrun lost an edge and fell to the ice. Panthers captain Aleksander Barkov followed Chychrun and, in his attempt to gain possession of the puck, was dumped to the ice by Tom Wilson. As Barkov fell, his skates came up high and cut the prone Capitals defender.
While the play and Chychrun’s initial reaction seemed innocuous, the injury was severe enough to keep him out of the rest of the first period. And, although he returned for the final 40 minutes, head coach Spencer Carbery revealed there is concern about Chychrun’s status for Tuesday night’s game against the Winnipeg Jets.
“Little bit, yeah,” Carbery said. “We’ll see how he feels tomorrow. [He] got very fortunate that there was no significant damage, but it’s still a significant cut.”
Chychrun did not practice with the Caps on Monday but did take part in their annual team photo. As he took the ice, he was sporting a noticeably large bandage on his wrist all the way up to his thumb.
The frightening injury sparked discussion during Carbery’s morning media availability on how to best protect players from cuts. Chychrun’s cut comes just over a year after the hockey community was left reeling when former Pittsburgh Penguins forward Adam Johnson was killed by a skate cut to the neck while playing in England last season.
Further attention was brought to the issue after Casey Fitzgerald, the son of New Jersey Devils president of hockey operations and general manager Tom Fitzgerald, was cut on the neck by a skate during a December AHL game for the Hartford Wolf Pack.
“He called us from the ambulance on the way to the hospital, saying, ‘I’m okay. I’m gonna be okay,’” Fitzgerald told The Athletic’s Michael Russo and Chris Johnston. “We kind of broke down there.”
Fitzgerald, who had already been a major advocate for additional protective equipment, spoke about his son’s injuries during the NHL’s annual GM meetings earlier this month, imploring teams and players to adopt cut-resistant gear. Carbery discussed the balancing act between the desire to prevent injuries and players’ resistance to changing their equipment.
“It’s hard, right,” Carbery said. “I know one of the general managers, Tom Fitzgerald, [his son] Casey Fitzgerald [got cut], so he’s trying to — and I know the players’ union wants nothing to be mandated and let the players make their own choices, so it’s just a difficult, I don’t want to say ‘problem,’ but — even guys’ visors. Like, I was watching, there’s a couple guys in the league — remember Carl Hagelin, where they push them up. I don’t know the answer to it. Those are really, really difficult things to fix, and mandating things with the union and the league is tough.”
Hagelin, who announced his retirement ahead of last season, was forced to call an early end to his on-ice career after suffering an eye injury at the end of the Capitals’ practice on the first day of March in 2022. The Swedish winger was caught up high by a stick under his tilted visor during a battle drill, rupturing the choroid in the back of his left eye and leaving his vision permanently damaged.
Johnson’s death sparked a lot of talk about neck guards last year, and the Capitals’ TJ Oshie, through his company Warroad, began providing cut-resistant gear to his teammates and other players around the league. The IIHF later made neck guards mandatory at all levels of their men’s and women’s competitions, following similar mandates in the AHL and ECHL.
“It’s a really tricky, tricky thing because you want as many players protected as possible, and then it becomes a — you know, these guys have played the game for a long, long time, so alterations to certain things and wearing different stuff,” Carbery said. “Gosh, it’s scary stuff when you see things become that close to being really, really dangerous.”
Carbery added that Chychrun will travel with the Capitals to Winnipeg despite his questionable status. The Caps are carrying two extra defensemen on their roster, Alex Alexeyev and Dylan McIlrath. Alexeyev, who has not played since November 8, would be the natural substitution for Chychrun as both players are left-shooting.