Should the NHL Do More to Protect Injured Players?

Dylan Larkin played an integral role in for the Red Wings to get a point out of Florida, but he also had to limp through an injury to do so. Should the NHL do more to protect injured players?

Dylan Larkin was caught in an ambush.

Tied up in front of the Florida net in Saturday’s game, Larkin turned in front of the net as defenseman Jeff Petry laid in a point blast that hit Larkin right on the back side of his left leg near the knee. The pain was instantaneous, of such an intense variety that Larkin writhed on the ice. It took the help of two teammates for him to leave the ice.

Soon after a trip down the tunnel, though, Larkin returned. He took a faceoff, and he went down in pain yet again, favoring the spot where the puck had hit him. Another trip down the tunnel, and somehow, someway, another return followed. Larkin stayed in this time, gingerly but still present. He came up clutch to earn Detroit a point against Florida by way of his tying, power play goal with four minutes left.

"I don't want to go into it, it's a detail on that one," Larkin said postgame. "It's not really that important. I came back and felt good."

Larkin’s personal heroics deserve respect, that’s certain. It takes a lot of grit to come back from such an injury, especially when it comes to the must-win temperature that a playoff race brings. But his obvious ailing throughout the process begs the question of whether the NHL should do more to prevent players from pushing through what could be serious injuries.

It’s almost an accepted principle of hockey to play injured. Think of Patrice Bergeron playing for the 2013 Stanley Cup with a punctured lung, or when a young Wayne Gretzky saw how much physical sacrifice it took for the 1983 New York Islanders to beat his Oilers for the Cup. Stitches, bruises and broken bones — part of the culture of hockey is that players gut out the pain.

And to be fair, there’s a reason. It takes sacrifice to win the Cup, and the number of players league-wide who are playing through bad injuries is likely higher than any injury report would list. It’s the nature of such a physical sport to get banged up, and glory only comes through pain. When players compete their whole lives for a championship, you bet a deep bruise or a strained muscle won't stop them from chasing victory.

But how much glory is in a shootout loss to the Panthers? How much glory can be had when Lord Stanley’s Cup hasn’t even been buffed up yet? There’s a time and a place for reckless abandon. At this point in the year, amid a playoff race that Detroit is lagging behind in, such sacrifice exists in a gray area at best.

Detroit needs Larkin — that much is obvious. They’re 4-10 in the 14 games he has missed this season due to injury, and 4-12 counting two games he exited early. Yet as much as the Red Wings need him, there’s also a pang of guilt in seeing him skate all over the same ice he could hardly move on just minutes before. At some point, the health and safety of players has to come before a playoff race, especially one that’s not guaranteed.

At some point, someone should step in.

Hindsight makes such moral judgements too easy, and in the heat of the moment, Larkin surely wanted to play. His team wanted him to as well. He’s a paid professional, and he can make decisions about his own health. This is a fact of life of professional sports, just like missing family time for road trips and uprooting an entire life because of trades and waiver claims.

That's why someone has to step in and prevent serious injury. Playing through pain is a moral question for those in the room to make, but it’s also one the NHL can address, too. The league’s concussion spotters monitor health and safety. The same medical personnel could pick out other injuries, too. It shouldn’t take a doctor to say something’s wrong when Larkin scrambles across the ice in pain for the second time, but maybe that’s what it will take to properly protect players. Then again, maybe we’re expecting too much from a league that still denies that concussions cause CTE. And when the Department of Player Safety struggles to make consistent judgments anyway, maybe we don't want the NHL's cooks in the kitchen, anyway.

I’m not saying that players should be deactivated for every minor injury, or that anyone should pearl-clutch over athletes putting themselves in harm’s way. But for the big injuries, the ones where a player like Larkin are obviously ailing, it’s worth considering whether someone should step in. Larkin played through the pain and was healthy enough to make a big impact on the game, earning a point that could be crucial down the line. His sacrifice, you could argue, was worth it.

But will it be worth it in a few years, when the pain of injuries stacks on a veteran Larkin? Hell, will it be worth it in a couple weeks if the Red Wings don't make the playoffs?

These are tough decisions, and it takes an expert to make them. The NHL should consider whether it can do more to get those decisions right.

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