LOS ANGELES — It could have been a terrible injury, one which could have profoundly affected his vision, if not maimed him in the face.
Flyers defenseman Shayne Gostisbehere caught a skate blade in the opening minutes of play from the Kings’ Kyle Clifford during Friday's 4-2 season-opening win (see game recap).
Clifford was falling to the ice when his back leg caught "Ghost," as he was stumbling, as well. Clifford’s skate came up under Gostisbehere’s shield and sliced him laterally on the right side of the face to his nose.
Incredibly, it looked worse on television because Gostisbehere didn’t need stitches. It wasn’t as deep as the blood suggested.
“I kind of fell first and he just hit me,” Gostisbehere said. “I kind of got lucky. It didn’t get me too bad. No stitches, just a scrape. I was just thankful it wasn’t worse. I’ll take this any day for whatever could have happened.”
He said he was looking up and caught him.
“Something hit me and I checked real quick and I was leaking [blood],” he said. “God was with me on that one. Thank Him for that.”
Flyers coach Dave Hakstol said he didn’t realize what had happened.
“I didn’t know if it was a skate, a stick or what,” he said. “I saw him and saw the replay. When you see the replay, you realize how close that came to being really bad.”
Sean Couturier observed, “It was pretty scary looking at him.”
Neuvirth’s start
Michal Neuvirth had 23 saves in earning his first win of the season. He had not started a season opener since 2010 when he was with Washington.
Neuvirth didn’t have a lot of flashy saves, but he was pelted with high deflections from various angles and handled most of them.
A critical save came early in the second period when he stopped Nick Shore on a wrister from 15 feet.
“Yeah, I stayed patient and reacted and I trust myself to react,” Neuvirth said. “It was a big save for us.”
That save kept the game scoreless. A few shifts later, Boyd Gordon scored the Flyers' first goal of the season.
First period
The Kings owned the blue line during the opening period, gave the Flyers fits on the breakout and forced them into turnovers. The Flyers went more than 13 minutes without a shot.
“They came out hard and it took us 10 minutes to get our legs going,” Neuvirth said. “That’s the way we've got to play on the road.”
You could tell the Kings had played a game already. They seemed ready from the drop. However, Hakstol's club rebounded with a dominant second period.
“We got a couple good saves when the game was 0-0,” Hakstol said. “The first goal was big for us. We felt like coming out of the first period we had started to skate and play a bit better, do a few more things positively with the puck.”
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