Devils Nico Hischier Swaps Jersey Numbers Mid-Game After Nasty Cut At World Championship

While the number of NHL teams in the Stanley Cup Playoffs is dwindling, there's a big crop of NHLers who decided to keep playing by jetting across the Atlantic to play in the IIHF World Championship.

The tournament happens every year — this year it's being held in Czechia — and you'll see a bunch of players whose NHL clubs either failed to make the postseason or were bounced early head over for the tournament.

One of these players is New Jersey Devils captain Nico Hischier, who I can only assume a postseason appearance would be in the cards at the start of this season (I know I did), but alas it was not, so he hopped a flight to Czechia to represent his native Switzerland in the tournament.

The Swiss squared off with the host team on Monday, and Hischier found himself getting involved in a nasty collision after driving hard to the net.

As Daily Faceoff's Steven Ellis noted in that tweet, Hischier narrowly avoided catching a skate blade straight to the face.

However, he didn't come out of it unscathed and suffered a cut on his cheek which led to him leaking a it of blood all over his Team Switzerland sweater.

Oh, well. No biggie, I'm sure they brought a backup No. 13 sweater for one of the biggest-name players on the Swiss roster.

Nope.

Hischier got fixed-up and hit the ice again, but made a wardrobe change before coming back. swapping into a No. 49 jersey.

How was there no backup jersey? Why not show up at the tournament and go full-Noah's ark with the sweaters; two of each?

I guess the Swiss team doesn't do that, but who cares, they earned themselves a big 2-1 win over the Czechs in a shootout.

Switzerland's next group-stage game is against Great Britain on Wednesday, and in recent years the Swiss have become a dark horse team to watch out for in international play.