Victor Hedman nearly loses eye after visor splits

Tampa Bay Lightning defenseman Victor Hedman might be the luckiest man in the world after nearly losing his eye after his visor split. 

Hockey can be a very violent sport. It features some of the most gruesome and disgusting injuries known to mankind. The weird thing is, some of the worst occur during weird circumstances. Tampa Bay Lightning defenseman Victor Hedman nearly lost his eye after his visor split during Sweden’s 8-1 win over Italy at the IIHF World Championships.

He should be lucky he can still see clearly out of both eyes. During play, Italian forward Michele Marchetti collided with Hedman. This caused his visor to split and cut his face dangerously close to his eye. It’s kind of ironic the one thing that is supposed to protect Hedman’s eyes nearly cost him an eye.

The injury is quite gruesome, so just a fair warning that you probably shouldn’t look at it if you’re squeamish. But if you enjoy seeing scary injuries, feel free to scroll down. Here’s a picture of the injury.

Hedman’s coming off an extremely impressive season, arguably the best of his career. He got a well deserved Norris Trophy nomination, but he’ll likely lose to fellow Swedish defenseman Erik Karlsson of the Ottawa Senators or San Jose Sharks defenseman Brent Burns. Hedman’s team might have missed the postseason, but it sure wasn’t from a lack of effort from him.

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He put up 72 points this season in 79 games, a career high for him. Hedman also put up a career best 16 goals and 56 assists while playing over 24 minutes a night. The Lightning suffered a brief scare after seeing his visor split, but luckily, their franchise defenseman just has a really awesome scar to show for it. This could have been so much worse for Hedman.