Detroit's Dylan Larkin Got Knocked Unconscious Against Ottawa...And That's Not Even The Worst Hockey Injury We've Seen Recently

Dylan Larkin got knocked unconscious in a game against the Ottawa Senators after taking a sucker punch to the head.

The Detroit Red Wings captain found himself near the front of Ottawa’s net during a first-period power play. As he scrummed for the loose puck, Senators forward Mathieu Joseph tried to remove Larkin from the play.

However, for no good reason, Joseph decided it would be a great idea to give Larkin a good old right jab to the back of his dome. Unprepared for the contact, Larkin fell to the ice and lay motionless in a frightening scene. 

Infuriated about his captain’s state, David Perron proceeded to check Artem Zub in the face. Obviously, Zub didn’t lay the dirty hit. He was just the first person a (justifiably) upset Perron saw, and therefore suffered his wrath. The rest of the players on the ice erupted in a scrum. 

Larkin regained consciousness and eventually skated off with some help.

You might be thinking, “Wow, that’s pretty scary. But hey, at least unusually disturbing injuries like that don’t happen too often, right?”

Unfortunately, we’ve seen more than a few of these serious injuries happen in recent weeks.

Dylan Larkin Is Just One Of Many Victims Of Freak Hockey Injuries

Last week, 19-year-old Jonas Nyhus Myhre actually had his chest torn open inadvertently by a skate. Originally, he thought the blade merely bruised his chest, but he had to get a muscle sewn back together at a local hospital.

If you think that’s bad, take a look at what happened to Boston Bruins forward Jakub Lauko. Earlier this season, the forward fell to the ice, where a Chicago Blackhawks skater accidentally clipped Lauko In the face - again with his skate.

Fortunately, Lauko kept both of his eyes, and his sense of humor in the wake of his injury.

Additionally, a Finnish female hockey star (Sanni Hakala) got paralyzed from the chest down after crashing into a goal post.

But by far the most tragic injury of them all involved Adam Johnson. While a member of the Nottingham Panthers (a UK-based team), Johnson died during a game against the Sheffield Steelers. Forward Matt Petgrave inexplicably raised his skate off the ice and unintentionally sliced open Johnson’s throat.

Obviously, Johnson and Larkin’s situations could have been avoided, but those are easy fixes. Don’t punch people in the back of the head, and don’t purposefully raise your leg off the ice.

But the rest are simply freak accidents with no effective way to fix it (other than more padding). Hockey is one of the most dangerous sports, we’ve just unfortunately been reminded of that a little too much recently.