The Sabres won 5-3 over the the Florida Panthers, but rightly overshadowing that was the Panthers’ Zednik, who suffered a cut to his neck. The serious injury and its aftermath stopped play for about twenty minutes until it was decided to continue the game to its conclusion.
I was only listening to the telecast in catches from the kitchen at that point, but a call from my parents at the game brought us back to the Tivo to see what was happening. The replays were unnerving — as another Florida player’s right skate came up into Zednik’s neck as he skated into the corner to Miller’s left — but thankfully we didn’t see much of the blood on the ice. I think my mom said, "It was more blood than I’ve ever seen." The down-the-ice angle we saw of it on television certainly made it look like a profuse amount.
Richard Zednik skated quickly off the ice holding his neck, looking very, very pale, and was practically caught by trainers at the bench; he looked as if he was on the verge of collapse. I don’t know how he made it. They got him out of the bench area and later we were told he had been stabilized and taken to a Buffalo hospital. As of this writing, the postgame show indicated he was in surgery.
The Buffalo fans held a standing ovation when it was announced that Zednik was stable and on the way to the hospital, but up until that, there appeared to be little news in the arena itself. I had tried to let mom know what was going on from the telecast, but I probably called her during this ovation because I had to scrub through video on the Tivo and was still a little behind realtime. I haven’t heard from Aaron and Missy yet; they were in the seventh row for today’s game, but I don’t know what section.
Anyway, the injury was extremely scary and we pray for Zednik’s continued safety and recovery.