Sebastian Aho of the Carolina Hurricanes and Zach Hyman of the Edmonton Oilers are giving new meaning to the word “faceoff.”
Both were hit in the face by a puck on Tuesday night, and each played an indirect role in goals.
Aho was bloodied after being struck near the mouth by a shot from near the blue line by Pierre Engvall of the visiting Islanders. As the puck was falling to the ice, New York's Brock Nelson swatted it out of the air and past Carolina goalie Antti Raanta for the first goal in an eventual 3-2 New York win over the Hurricanes in Game 5 of the teams' first-round playoff series.
“Unfortunate it hits a guy in the face," Nelson said. "For me it was nice, it was right there and I was able to get a stick on it in the air and go in.”
Aho eventually skated back to the bench while doubled over, then straight to the locker room. He returned midway through the period after getting stitches and eventually scored for Carolina.
“I just kind of didn’t know what hit me,” Aho said. “It came pretty quickly there. Obviously the guy was probably not aiming for my face either. Yeah, it’s hockey, it happens.”
Hyman picked up a point on his play in Game 5 of host Edmonton's series against Los Angeles when a fluttering slap shot by teammate Evan Bouchard struck him on the left side of his face — also near his mouth — and ricocheted past Kings goalie Pheonix Copley.
Hyman shook off the discomfort and continued to play in the Oilers' 6-3 win.
“Luckily Bouch didn’t get all of it, but if he’d got all of it, it probably wouldn’t have gone where it went, so take that trade-off any day for a goal,” Hyman said. “I’ve got a bunch off of different parts of my body, but that’s the first one off my face. That’s the way you score in playoffs. You get a pretty goal here and there, but a lot of it is going to those tough areas and finding loose change.”
The two incidents come only a few days after a Winnipeg player needed 75 stiches to his face after he was gashed by a skate blade during a playoff game against Vegas.
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AP NHL playoffs: https://apnews.com/hub/stanley-cup and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
The Associated Press
