Elmer Soderblom's face explodes after being hit with the puck.

This one looked bad.

On Sunday, during a clash between the Detroit Red Wings and Washington Capitals, Red Wings defenseman Elmer Soderblom suffered a pretty gruesome injury during the game's very first period.

Soderblom was injured when, with roughly 5 minutes left to go in the first, a clearing attempt from Capitals defenseman Matt Roy went terribly wrong. Roy didn't do anything wrong here and was merely trying to send the puck up the boards and down the ice, but things would go horribly wrong when Soderblom attempted to block the clearing attempt. Instead of the puck going up along the boards, it would shoot straight up the shaft of Soderblom's stick before smashing into his face.

The puck took a sickening bounce off of Soderblom's face, hitting him with so much force that it bounced all the way back behind the Capitals' net, and still had momentum when it was picked up after ricocheting off of Soderblom's face.

Soderblom would immediately collapse to the ice and remained hunched over on all fours for several long moments as the training staff rushed out to help him. As Soderblom was sitting there, a very visible pool of crimson began to form on the ice indicating that there was some type of injury going on.

Based on the size of the pool on the ice I suspect that Soderblom took a pretty severe blow to the face, but there has been no official word yet on the severity of this injury. What I do know is that Soderblom has not returned for the second period, and I won't be surprised if he remains out for a little while.

Update: Soderblom has returned to the game wearing a full face shield, an incredible display of toughness on his part.