Josh Gorges on Jordan Staal injury: 'I heard him scream'

The necessary evil of warming up to a regular season took a terrible toll in Buffalo on Tuesday night, when Sabres defenseman Josh Gorges tangled with Carolina Hurricanes center Jordan Staal, with the resulting tumble grotesquely breaking Staal’s leg.

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In the third period of the two players’ first action of the preseason, Gorges skated forward to check Staal and inadvertently put the veteran’s season in jeopardy.

Gorges spoke to Sabres beat writer Bill Hoppe about the collision:

"The puck got moved up to him. I stepped in front of him to try to separate him from the play. We got kind of tangled up. He tried to grab around me to switch positions. Next thing I know, he falls. He must’ve gotten tangled up, and I went right over top of him. It was one of those plays, where as soon as I landed on him, I heard him scream. I knew right away something must’ve hurt him. I mean, he’s a pretty tough guy. A guy like that doesn’t lay on the ice for nothing. I knew something was wrong right away. I was kind of on his back side. The ref came to me and told me it looked pretty ugly. It’s kind of one of those scary plays. You don’t want to see a guy go down like that, especially first game of the preseason. You’re trying to get yourself back and ready to play."

Staal, an alternate captain of the Hurricanes, was sent back to Raleigh to meet with team doctors.

At the moment, there’s no set time for his return.

Ironically enough, the 26-year-old didn’t miss a single game in 2012-13 and 2013-14, and has been a relative iron man in his career, missing just 63 games over eight seasons in Carolina and with the Pittsburgh Penguins.

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Josh Gorges on Jordan Staal injury: ‘I heard him scream’

By brettballantini | Sep 25, 2014

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