New England collectively gasped Saturday night during the Boston Bruins’ 3-0 win over the Tampa Bay Lightning.
And not in a good way.
Late in the first period, B’s alternate captain David Backes went sliding into the net alongside Lightning forward Yanni Gourde. Gourde spun around and inadvertently slashed Backes’ right leg with his skate. Backes paused to look at what happened, then went and skated with all his weight on the opposite leg to the bench with blood visibly gushing.
The injury was described as a right leg laceration, with Backes requiring at least 18 stitches by head coach Bruce Cassidy’s count. And Tuesday, Backes described the ordeal in great detail.
“I felt an impact with my leg and then I looked down and saw just skate blade there so when I touched it, anything I touched turned red right away,” Backes said. “I said, ‘Well, there’s a lot of blood coming out of there, I better get my butt off the ice.’ A little panic with how much blood was coming out, with what I was seeing and what I was touching.
“Probably doesn’t help that I was at the end of a 30-40 second shift at the time,” Backes added. “My heart rate was probably racing and pumping stuff through there pretty good.”
Yikes.
Backes continued about what happened once he got into the training room.
“By the time I was off the ice, thankfully — I don’t know if it’s thankfully or not — Brandon Carlo had a cut (above) his eye, so Tampa’s doc was already in our room with gloves on ready to suture him up,” Backes said.
“I was able to go right in there, he had gloves on, he stuck his hands right in there and tried to clot whatever was spitting and was able to do that, get me sutured up, no worse for wear,” Backes said. “Let this thing heal up so it doesn’t infected and I can get back on the ice.”
What an unpleasant experience.
With the injury, Backes will miss the tilt Wednesday against his former squad, the St. Louis Blues. The forward did add, however, that he expects to return in roughly 5-10 days.
