Hockey’s changing. And it’s a good thing.

Alison Eldridge

Hockey has always been known for its physicality. Some call it brutality. Some call it nothing more than good old fashioned old-time hockey. But if you’ve watched more than a handful of games, you’ve seen it: legs and shoulders slamming into boards, 90 to 100 mile-per-hour pucks taking bad bounces into faces and heads giving players that signature hockey player grin, horrendous gashes from skate blades to unprotected soft spots of skin, full on fist fights, and of course, violent body on body collisions.

Immediately following the hit Joe Pavelski took from Matt Dumba in the first game of the first round of the 2023 Stanley Cup playoffs, no one questioned if Pavs would be back on the ice that night. To the contrary, many wondered if he’d even be back on skates ever again. Watching him ask the team’s trainers, “Where am I?” and, “What happened?” as he was guided off the ice was enough to make any fan of the sport cringe. And for Stars fans, who are all too familiar with TBI and CTE, it was even more concerning. (If you’re new to following the team, check out Stephen Johns’ story.)

The argument between Wild and Stars fans online quickly devolved into if the hit was clean or not, and to be frank, it doesn’t matter. If a player’s head makes contact with the ice, an opposing player’s body part, the boards, the glass, or any object that gives significant resistance to the force of the skull hitting it, the primary concern needs to be for that skull, and not fines or penalties. Unfortunately, the league’s stance on head collisions doesn’t favor that opinion, and too often the exact opposite happens, like with the collision between Alex Ovechkin and Jean-Paul Pageau in January. 

Despite the league’s commissioner taking the position of there being no connection between the sport and CTE, individual teams clearly aren’t taking any chances, including the Stars. And while it hurt watching the Stars struggle without the team’s “dad” for the rest of the first round, seeing him come back and absolutely dominate in game one against the Kraken reinforced the importance and necessity of giving injuries like his as much time as they need to heal. Giving Pavs that time to recover in round one will thankfully keep him along for the ride on the Stars’ next push for the Cup in ’23-’24, and will hopefully see him continue that push for years to come.