Trevor van Riemsdyk takes a skate right to the neck!

There was an extremely scary moment in the National Hockey League on Saturday, one that could very easily have been far more horrifying for everyone in attendance and everyone watching around the world.

On Saturday the Carolina Hurricanes and the Philadelphia Flyers faced off in a massively important game for both teams, although you could certainly argue that the stakes for the Hurricanes were much more real. The Flyers desperately needed a win to keep their extremely faint playoff hopes alive, although even with a win there was almost no chance of them making it into the playoffs, while the Hurricanes desperately wanted the win to create more distance between the Montreal Canadiens and the Columbus Blue Jackets, 2 teams that entered the day only one point back of the Hurricanes. 

That all took a back seat in the game's third period however when we saw a horrific scene play out before our very eyes, one thankfully that managed to miraculously turn out alright. After roughly 4 minutes had expired in the third frame of the game Philadelphia Flyers forward Ryan Hartman appeared to lose his balance along the boards, normally not a huge deal but this time around it was. 

That is because when Hartman fell to the ice he did something resembling a half roll on the frozen playing surface, ending up on his back with his feet sticking straight up into the air, feet that happen to be equipped with razor sharp knives on the bottom of them. You can probably figure out on your own what happened from here, Carolina Hurricanes defenseman Tevor van Riemsdyk found himself at the worst possible place at the worst possible time, and was on the wrong end of the Hartman's skate blade when it came flashing up during that aforementioned roll.

Hartman's skate blade, to the horror of everyone watching on, came right up to the face of van Riemsdyk and then van Riemsdyk himself made it worst. As if he were leaning over to look at the puck, or to look at what was happening to Hartman beneath him, van Riemsdyk dropped his head down, bringing the skate blade right up to his neck. Thankfully van Riemsdyk's equipment did an excellent job of protecting him, but boy this one was scary.

[pub]