Concussions Becoming a Headache for the NHL

Imagine if the NHL lost Sidney Crosby in his prime? Concussions are becoming a serious problem. (Credits: Brian Babineau/NHLI/Getty Images)

The NHL newswire has been afire recently. Not with reports of blockbuster trades, not with updates on playoff races, and not with talk of end-of-the-year honors. Instead, the headlines have been stolen by incessant concussion diagnoses, the latest being to Evgeni Malkin who was placed on Injured Reserve yesterday by the Penguins.  

At some point, the question has to be asked. When it comes to concussions, where does it end for the NHL?

As protocol stiffen and tests become harder to pass, one has to wonder just how many players are going to end up on the IR with “concussion-like symptoms” or “head injuries” or, as the new saying goes, “upper body injuries.” With this great procession of bleary-eyed and dizzy-headed players stumbling to the IR, it certainly seems like doctors could diagnose every NHL player, coach and GM with a concussion, if they really wanted to.  

Where is the line going to be drawn?

Let’s be clear about one thing: The NHL is not wrong in what they are doing. In a sport as violent as hockey, caution and thoroughness are critical in the domain of head injuries. Rushing players back into action can compound problems, and turn days on the IR into weeks, and weeks into months.

Two years ago, the Penguins opened the doors for their other star, Sidney Crosby, to come back on the ice just days after he took a blindside shoulder to the head from David Steckel in the Winter Classic. In the Penguins’ next game, Crosby absorbed a routine shove into the board from Tampa Bay’s Victor Hedman and crumpled to the ice. He would not play again for 10 months and his symptoms were so severe, the fog engulfing him so dense, people honestly wondered if he would ever play again.  

He has since returned to action (though not without another 3-month concussion-induced stint on the IR last season), but his is a cautionary tale about the dangers of overlooking blows to the head in the name of toughness.

His tale was not lost on the other 29 teams in the league. This year, there has been no shyness with the IR, even if there remains some taciturnity in revealing injuries. As of today, 11 players are listed on the league’s injury report with concussions. Four more are listed with head injuries, and an additional 14 with upper body injuries. These names include Malkin, Carolina’s Jeff Skinner, and blossoming stars Vladimir Tarasenko of St. Louis and Cam Fowler of Anaheim. Colorado’s young captain Gabriel Landeskog only recently returned from a concussion of his own, and Philly’s Wayne Simmonds was forced to sit out three games in early February.

Naturally, this begs the question: who’s next? Fort it surely isn’t a question of “if”, but “when.” The meticulousness with which the NHL now examines injured players has made that a reality. The number of concussions reported (17) in the 1995-96 season over 1000+ games has already been matched this season in less than 300 games. Though the game has grown faster and necessarily more violent, it has not grown that faster.

So far, the NHL has embraced new technology in treating concussions. Players who absorb blows to the head must now pass a SCAT2 evaluation exam before returning to action. The league has added further qualitative judgments, as well. Any player showing signs of loss of consciousness, impaired motor coordination, balance problems, or possessing a blank or vacant look must be removed from the game.

But just as the game continues to evolve, so too does concussion protocol. Is there a SCAT3 evaluation exam on the horizon? If so, surely it will be more stringent than the one in place now. Are there new mandates coming? If so, surely they will be less tolerating. If the NHL declines to adopt potentially new measures, they will be vilified for disregarding player safety. And yet if they fall in line, and apply the science of the day, teams may be calling down fans from the nosebleeds to fill the benches.

(This could actually be a fun experiment. All those loudmouth, self-proclaimed Scotty Bowmans, screaming down foolhardy advice, now thrown into the action to fend for themselves. Something tells me they wouldn’t be quite as eager to hop over the boards at ice level as they are in section 407.)

But the novelty of it would wear off pretty quick. Three blue-line turnovers and a couple of traffic cones later, and you’d want the real guys back. Chances are though, they’ll be waiting in a dark, quiet room to be told what they already suspect: concussion.

I’m not saying the NHL is going extinct. I’m not Bernard Pollard. And though people probably never thought the Wooly Mammoth could go extinct, Wooly Mammoth’s didn’t know how to pull off toe drags or make split saves. (Oh, but if they did…)

What I’m saying is the NHL, at some point, is going to have to make a decision. A decision to actually limit their concussion protocol, to rein in the stiffening of their policies. If they’ve put a cap on salaries, they can put a cap on science.

For now, their procedures are prudent and their attitude is open-minded. They are keeping players safe, protecting them partly from their opponents, mostly from themselves. (Hockey players always think they can play.) But when their prudence becomes coddling, when a player takes a good, hard hit into the glass, comes back a little woozy and is rushed to the locker room, then, ah, the league has gone too far.

At some point, you just have to let the boys play.