Morgan Barron has played great hockey lately. During Game 1 of the first-round series between the Winnipeg Jets and the Vegas Golden Knights, he showed everyone why he’s so appreciated in the organization and what a warrior he really is.
Barron suffered a scary injury early in the game during a scramble in front of the Vegas goal. Full chaos erupted, with no one knowing if the puck had crossed the line. Barron fell to the ice, and as Vegas goalie Laurent Brossoit lifted his leg, his skate slid behind Barron’s visor, cutting him right over the right eye.
Barron left the game, and it required more than 75 stitches to sew him up.
Barron left the game, but halfway through the second period, he returned with a full cage. He ended the game with five hits and three shots on goal.
“They did a great job stitching me up and obviously it missed my eye so just glad it didn’t get me in a really bad spot,” said Barron postgame.
Barron was asked what went through his mind as it all happened.
“I was trying to figure out if the puck went in. It was sitting pretty close and, obviously, I saw the skate coming and it was just an unlucky play, a little bit unfortunate. The first thought was ‘I could see out of the eye, so that was the main thing.’”
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Barron said he didn’t have to think twice about continuing to play hard when he returned to the game.
“No. No. With the cage on it’s pretty hard for anything to happen. You get hopped up on adrenaline.”
“I was obviously really excited for my first playoff game and just kind of went from there.”
Jets center Adam Lowry scored two goals as the Jets won 5-1 over the Golden Knights and said Barron’s injury looked bad.
“It looked like he got attacked by a shark, to be honest,” he said postgame.
“It’s a scary thing. We’re all so worried about the puck crossing the line and then all of a sudden we see a trail of blood basically from the crease all the way to the bench. You don’t know what happened. You assume a stick, but seeing the replay and hearing about it in the intermission, and hearing the number of stitches he was getting. I thought they said 15, not 50-plus.”
Lowry was impressed with how well Barron played when he returned.
“To sit on the table, get stitched up and miss basically an hour of action and come back speaks volumes to his heart. It’s tough to come back when you’ve sat that long.
Blake Wheeler said neither he nor his teammates weren’t surprised to see Barron return to the game.
“I don’t think anyone doubted he was coming back,” he said.
“He didn’t look very pretty but he’s a college hockey player and he’s used to playing with a cage on so it was good, first and foremost, to see that he wasn’t hurt too badly. Once we knew that, it was good to see him back on the ice, for sure.”
