NHL raises question of mandating cut-resistant gear after Evander Kane injury

TORONTO — As gruesome as Evander Kane’s skate-slashed wrist was on Nov. 8, what is equally gut-wrenching for Kane and the Edmonton Oilers is that it was mostly preventable.

Kane was not wearing Kevlar-infused and cut-resistant material, which is widely available to NHL players, when Tampa Bay’s Pat Maroon accidentally stepped on his wrist, leading to a deep laceration that went to the bone. With immediate medical attention required to stop the bleeding, Kane quickly underwent surgery to repair the cut. He is expected to be out until February or March.

Kane’s injury was the genesis of an agenda item about player equipment on Tuesday at the NHL’s bi-annual GM Meetings here following Hockey Hall of Fame weekend.

The NHL’s 32 GMs were shown video of not just Kane’s injury, but an even more recent but equally queasy incident at the Karjala Cup in Finland where Finnish player Waltteri Merela had his wrist sliced open.

They were also shown a clip of a player who wore a cut-resistant sock and how it protected him against a major Achilles injury when a skate contacted his leg. Managers were reminded of the four cut-resistant material brands available to teams.

The NHL Players’ Association has always advocated for player freedom of equipment choice. But are we inching closer to a time when the NHL will ask the union to collectively bargain the mandatory use of cut-resistant under garments in exposed areas of the body?

NHL senior EVP of hockey operations Colin Campbell said Tuesday the league is talking about just that.

Remember: The NHL and NHLPA resisted the mandate of visors until the 2013-14 season. Now only a handful of ‘grandfathered’ players still play without one. It was a common-sense change to increase player safety.

The same might be necessary now. From from Clint Malarchuk to Richard Zednik to Ilya Mikheyev to Kane, few other on-ice dangers quite literally bring players to the potential brink of death like skate cuts do. Players are flying around at 25 miles an hour with sharp metal knives attached to their feet.

“It’s tough to get players to change what they have. They just don’t want to change – even though their wife or mother would probably tell you that they want them to wear this,” Campbell said Tuesday. “We make it available and we need the players’ consent to mandate it. We’ve talked about it, at some point in time like we did the visors, [the idea of] grandfathering [in] cut-resistant material. Because it was a serious [injury].”

When asked by Daily Faceoff on Tuesday for a response to the NHL’s comments, the NHLPA and current players made it clear in a statement that they want freedom of choice in terms of equipment.

“Through the work of the joint NHL/NHLPA Protective Equipment Subcommittee, players have access to cut-resistant equipment,” an NHLPA spokesman wrote. “These cut-resistant products are available for all players to try out during training camp and throughout the season. This however remains an individual player equipment decision.”

One GM said on Tuesday that his staff “strongly encourages” every player to wear cut-resistant gear, but said that no matter how much it is encouraged, not every player will comply so long as it isn’t mandated.

Campbell acknowledged that complete change is impossible without the NHLPA on-board. How close is the NHL to having that conversation?

“We have it all the time,” Campbell said. “Things like this [the Kane injury], you get closer. We can’t mandate it as a league, but you would hope we could. We work with the companies to make it as easy as possible to change over to the cut-resistant material. I don’t know if you’ll ever get them to wear the longer [cuff] gloves … but again, it’s a player’s choice.”

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NHL raises question of mandating cut-resistant gear after Evander Kane injury

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