It took a tragedy, more than a decade ago, to change hockey for the better. On Dec. 30, 2011, playing in a junior varsity game for Benilde-St. Margaret’s, Jack Jablonski was checked from behind into the boards, and is permanently paralyzed as a result of the hit.
Working for the Los Angeles Kings today, Jablonski has made the most of his life-altering injury, including the work of a foundation that bears his name and has raised nearly $5 million for research into spinal cord injuries.
In the bigger picture, Jablonski’s injury was one of the catalysts for a change in the game on nearly every level. Hits from behind and their inherent danger became a focus of coaches and officials, and today there is more recognition that when you can see the name on the back of a player’s sweater, hits are a no-no.
Last week, within about 24 hours of each other, Minnesota Wild star Kirill Kaprizov and Minnesota Gophers star Brody Lamb were felled by knee-on-knee checks. Kaprizov was taken out in the neutral zone by a hit from Edmonton’s Drake Caggiula and Lamb was forced to leave Minnesota’s game at Notre Dame following a hit in the offensive zone by former Maple Grove standout Justin Janicke.
Both players missed their respective next games, but both appear to have avoided the worst, with Kaprizov back in the Wild lineup this week and Lamb potentially available to play in the Gophers’ series with Alaska this weekend.
Still, the scares have some wondering whether the knee-on-knee hit, which is widely regarded as a dirty and dangerous play, should be the next thing banished from the game.
“Knee-on-knee, that’s an unwritten rule inside sportsmanship. All players have to be in control of that, because that is when serious leg injuries can happen,” Gophers coach Bob Motzko said this week. “When you get two guys on the railroad tracks and then one tries to get off, you either both stay on together but you don’t lean back into it. A lot of times it’s nobody trying to throw a dirty hit, it’s just a gut reaction. But it’s a scary one.”
Motzko noted that hits from behind have been “pretty much taken out of the game” and opined that the emphasis on penalizing contact to the head in college hockey went too far, but some of those penalties are being walked back.
While Caggiula was not penalized in the NHL game, Janicke received a five-minute major penalty that night and a one-game suspension from the Big Ten. Gophers who know him from prep and summer hockey in the Twin Cities said that dirty hits aren’t really in Janicke’s nature.
“I doubt Justin did it on purpose, but that was pretty scary,” Gophers defenseman Luke Mittelstadt said.
Wild manpower update
Forward Marat Khusnutdinov returned to the lineup Friday after missing the previous three games because of a lower-body injury he suffered when he blocked a shot in the Wild’s 5-3 win in Edmonton last week.
Veteran defenseman Jonas Brodin missed a second consecutive game and has now been scratched for four of their past eight outings as he deals with an upper-body injury.
The Wild were without center Jakub Lauko for a second consecutive game because of a lower-body injury. Hopkins native Travis Boyd, who has played in road games at Calgary and at Buffalo, warmed up Friday but has yet to play a game for the Wild in his home state.
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