Haydn Fleury down after horrifying crash into the boards.

He is very, very, lucky.

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Published 4 years ago
Haydn Fleury down after horrifying crash into the boards.

Carolina Hurricanes defenseman Haydn Fleury is very lucky he was not seriously injured on this play.

Fleury and his Hurricanes were visiting the John Tortorella led Columbus Blue Jackets on Saturday night and things almost went horribly, horribly, wrong in the opening minutes of the very first period. I have to admit when I saw this play happen in real time I fully expected that Fleury had been very seriously injured, but thankfully I can let you know before you watch the clip below that it now appears as though he is going to be ok. 

Fleury was in a race for the puck with Columbus Blue Jackets rookie forward Alexandre Texier and in fact Fleury appeared to have won that race by a couple of strides, seemingly reaching the puck well before Texier. However Texier refused to give up on the play and, although you do not want to fault a player for playing hard, he put Fleury in some very serious danger as a result. In an attempt to get his stick on the puck Texier ended up putting his stick directly into the path of the streaking Fleury, and the resulting trip send the Hurricanes defenseman sailing into the boards at a horrifying angle. 

When you watch it in real time it looks like Fleury goes head and neck first into the end boards, and the gasp from even the Columbus Blue Jackets faithful in attendance tell the story of just how bad this looked to the fans in attendance. However when you slow the clip down it looks like, thankfully, Fleury's shoulder took the brunt of the impact and that may have been the only thing that saved him from a very serious injury. 

In spite of that though Fleury still remained down on the ice for several long moments after the collision with the boards, and it was a long time before he would get back up to his feet. I am happy to report though that he was able to leave the ice under his own power, and in fact Fleury has now returned to the Carolina Hurricanes bench, although at the time of this writing he has not stepped back out onto the ice.

Update: Fleury is back out there but I must admit he looks a little out of sorts on the ice.


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