Vokoun Hospitalized After Accidental Hit
Florida Panthers goaltender Tomas Vokoun was taken off the ice on a stretcher after getting unintentionally slammed in the head by the stick of teammate Keith Ballard in the opening period of Monday night’s game against the Atlanta Thrashers.
Vokoun had a cut on his ear, with blood visibly streaming from it, but was alert when he was placed in an ambulance and taken to a local hospital, a Panthers spokesman said.
“Vokoun is going to be fine,” Florida coach Peter DeBoer said after a 4-3 loss to the Thrashers.
“There was no internal ear damage, just a laceration,” Panthers general manager Randy Sexton said. Vokoun, who needed stitches, was expected to meet the team at the airport and fly home with them, he said.
It will be determined Tuesday whether Vokoun will be available for Florida’s next game, at home against Colorado on Wednesday, Sexton said.
The injury occurred after Atlanta’s Ilya Kovalchuk scored a goal at 8:54 of the first period, knocking in his own rebound after a breakaway.
Ballard, chasing Kovalchuk and unable to thwart him, carelessly swung his stick in apparent frustration at the net, inadvertently striking Vokoun in the head.
Vokoun was wheeled off the ice after about a 10-minute delay as paramedics and team medical staff attended to him.
Ballard did not speak to the media after the game.
“There’s not a guy who feels worse than he does,” defenseman Bryan Allen told the Miami Herald. “He means well, he was doing the right thing. He was showing he cares. It was an unfortunate accident, and I feel bad for him. I know he feels 100 times worse than anyone else.”
Allen said he and team captain Bryan McCabe, along with Sexton and DeBoer, spoke with the upset Ballard.
“It’s a scary thing,” Panthers center Stephen Weiss said, according to the Herald. “It’s obviously an accident and it’s tough to come back and focus. . . . It was similar to [when Olli Jokinen's skate cut Richard Zednik]. I’ve never been in that position, but I would think [Ballard's] mind was elsewhere the rest of that game.”
Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.
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