On Frozen Blog

A hockey captain should lead by example? How’s this, courtesy of Saturday’s Washington Times?

Washington Capitals captain Chris Clark did not play last night, but it wasn’t because he didn’t try. Simply put, the team physicians wouldn’t clear him.

Clark was hit in the mouth by a puck late in the third period of Wednesday’s 3-2 loss to Boston, sustaining several broken teeth, a fractured palate and possibly other injuries inside his mouth (exact details are vague). He has spent the last two days with physicians and dentists and met with doctors before last night’s game to plead his case.

“I have never seen a more courageous thing in hockey,” said coach Glen Hanlon, who has been involved in the sport for more than 30 years. “To stay out there and play after he was hurt, and he still tried to block shots, still stayed out there until the puck [was iced]. The puck just went straight in his mouth and knocked his teeth out.

“If you could see him, all the damage … and he practiced this morning! He’s got a [facial shield] to protect his mouth. And he won’t go on injured reserve.”

The Caps’ Mike Vogel, at his Dump and Chase insider’s chronicle, yesterday offered an update on Clark’s harrowing injury and stunning courage:

Clark was sporting a helmet with a modified cage, one that may need to be altered before he takes the ice against Atlanta. In last Wednesday’s game against Boston, Clark took a puck square in the mouth late in the third period of a 2-2 game. The shot — actually a clearing attempt — felled him, but he got back on his feet and continued his shift when he realized that the puck was still in Washington’s defensive zone. The clock and the scorebaord mattered more to Clark than did the mess that had been made of his mouth.

“I saw the puck going back to my point,” recalls Clark. “I’m standing there and I’ve got to do something. I can’t just lay down; they’re not going to blow the whistle right away especially if [the Bruins] have control of the puck. There’s no sense in laying on the ice. My legs didn’t break; I could get up and skate.

“It didn’t hurt. I didn’t really feel anything. My mouthguard was in, but I knew something wasn’t connected.”

He was right about that. Two of his teeth weren’t connected. Given that he lost those teeth and also suffered a crushed palate bone, the fact that Clark remained on the ice is nothing short of remarkable.

“It says that he is setting the standard,” says Caps coach Glen Hanlon, when asked what the incident says about the Capitals’ captain. “If that’s your captain and he is doing that, then I think all the players would have to look at that and say that’s what they want to try to match. And it won’t be easy for them. I can say that is likely the most courageous thing I’ve seen in hockey.”

What Clark endured the day after the puck in the mouth was probably even more courageous. His crushed palate was repaired with a cadaver bone and a screw. Three teeth on one side of the newly acquired “gap” were held together with braces. And he had a root canal. All this with merely local anasthesia. The procedure took “two or three hours,” says Clark.

“I couldn’t feel anything, but I could hear it,” he says with a bit of a wince in his voice. “That was the worse thing about it.”

Clark may have showed a disregard for his body by staying on the ice after taking the biscuit to the bicuspids, but it’s par for the course. He was far more concerned with trying to play Washington’s next games (last Friday and Saturday) than he was about what would be done to fill the space where his two teeth once resided.

“I don’t even know what’s going on now,” he says, when asked about the replacement choppers. “I haven’t talked to the dentist since Friday after the game. He was just worried about recovering from that. I’ll figure out the rest as I go on.”

He practiced with the team Friday morning and was visibly disappointed when told he would not be cleared to play in that night’s game. Clark says that he wouldn’t have missed any games had the injury occurred during the playoffs.