Alex Edler suffers gruesome skate blade cut to his head

If you missed Game 5 between the Vancouver Canucks and St. Louis Blues last night, you missed some of the best hockey of this entire whacky Stanley Cup Playoffs. The Canucks ended up prevailing 4-3 to take a 3-2 series lead, but things looked in doubt when they were down 3-1 early in the second period. The Canucks climbed back into things though and fourth line forward Tyler Motte put the Canucks ahead with his second remarkable breakaway goal on the evening. 

I mean... check out these goals, Motte looks more like teammate Brock Boeser on these snipes:

Not bad. Not bad at all.

Suffice it to say that this is a HUGE win for the young, upstart Canucks. They now push the defending Stanley Cup champion Blues to the brink and are on the verge of moving on to take on either the Vegas Golden Knights or the Colorado Avalanche.

But, last night's victory came at a great loss to the Canucks as they lost veteran defenseman Alex Edler to a gruesome skate cut on the side of his head. Edler was fighting for a puck along the sideboards in the Canucks zone when Blues forward Jordan Kyrou fell and had his foot come up and strike Edler in the ear area. Edler immediately dropped his gloves knowing that he'd been cut and made a b-line for the Canucks bench.

Check it out:

Ouch... that's tough to watch.

Thankfully though, it appears that Edler will be okay and Canucks head coach Travis Green doesn't expect his veteran defenseman to miss anytime with the injury. In fact, Green and the Canucks reportedly thought that there was a chance Edler would return to action yesterday evening according to Canucks TSN insider Farhan Lalji.

Check it out:

If in fact Edler does miss some action the Canucks will have to rely on one of Olli Juolevi, Jaylen Chatfield or Brogan Rafferty. While those are three fine young rookies, they simply don't stack up against a 34 year old veteran who has seen everything and experienced everything in the NHL. Suffice it to say that losing Edler from their lineup will be a big, BIG blow to the Canucks.