This week's Big Question: What is the worst injury you've seen a guy play through?
Ryan Johansen, C, Columbus Blue Jackets: "My ex-teammate taking 36 stitches, Matty Calvert. Taking 36 stitches in the head and he's the type of guy, he would smile and say, 'Hurry up, I want to get back out there right now.' He's a horse. He takes a lot of pride in it and that's a role he's come into and he's an animal. Does that count?"
Jeff Petry, D, Montreal Canadiens: "Taylor Hall getting stepped on. No helmet, warmups, stepped on a puck and guy came around the corner trying to get over him and stepped right on his forehead and split him wide open. You see his face. You could see him put his hand up to his face and there's no blood and then the next time he goes up, it's coming and it was ugly. It was ugly."
James van Riemsdyk, RW, Toronto Maple Leafs: "The craziest one I saw, my first year in Philly, Ian Laperriere took a slap shot in the face, a one-timer, and it knocked out, like, 15 of his teeth. And he made it back for the third period. That was pretty crazy."
Chris Pronger: "Jason Smith in Edmonton broke the ball of his foot. It was broken and he tried to play on it. I'm like, 'Dude, you can't.' And he was, 'Eh.' I can't imagine how much that had to hurt. Just think of the ball of your foot. That's a pressure point. You have to push there. Skating backwards, you're pushing on that. Skating forwards, you're pushing on that. I can't imagine the pain he was in trying to skate through that."
Kevin Shattenkirk, D, St. Louis Blues: "I played with Barret Jackman and he made his injuries seem so small and minuscule, where I think I would've been out three to four weeks. ... He had something going on one year, might have been his last year with his elbow. I'm not sure if it was tendinitis or what, but he couldn't straighten his elbow out past 45 degrees and all season he played through it. Every game you knew he was hurt, but he'd go out there and next thing you know, he's using that same elbow to knock someone in the back of the head. He was the guy, to me, [who] was just a warrior. He could play through anything. He wouldn't wear any of it on his face."
Mike Green, D, Detroit Red Wings: "John Erskine played with, I don't know if it was a fractured neck or something, herniated disk in his neck. He played with it for I don't know how long, the guy could barely move his neck when he came to the rink. After a couple years going more into it, looking into it, he ended up having surgery and didn't play. At the time you don't know, but at the same time playing through that is intense."
Kevin Bieksa, D, Anaheim Ducks: "You want to hear broken bones and stuff like that, right? I think the thing is, a lot of people have micro fractures in their feet and hands, and a lot of times it doesn't show up right away on X-rays. I know I have. I know [Ryan Kesler] has. We've played through broken bones on our feet before. It doesn't show up right away. After you're in pain for a week or two, you realize this thing isn't getting better, so you get a CAT scan. Sometimes it just doesn't show up. Things like that are hard to play with."
Shane Doan, C, Arizona Coyotes: "Danny Markov got hit with a full snap shot in the face in Columbus. I don't know how many stitches he had, in the 30s, in his face. He was back before the game ended. It was bad, bad. Broken stuff. Teppo Numminen was the toughest guy that nobody gave credit for. Him and Zbynek Michalek -- those guys played through broken hands, broken feet, broken fingers, toes. The guys that are the toughest, you don't even know it's broken. If I have an injury, I might be limping halfway down the hallway to make sure everyone sees [laughs]. The guys that are tough, you don't even see it. I think as a player, you appreciate that so much. Daymond Langkow, he broke his toe so bad. Big toe. It was shattered. They were freezing it every night. He is so tough. They stuck the needle in to freeze it. They finished freezing it and in order to get [the needle] in, they had to wiggle [the needle] around to get it through deep into his toe. They stuck it in and it hurt, you could see him getting in pain. He comes walking back in the room and is like, 'The freezing didn't work.' Sometimes it doesn't; in Arizona, the heat takes away the effectiveness of the painkiller. He went back in and they're like, 'No, it might just take some time.' They start feeling around and his sock was wet. They were like, 'What the heck?' They stuck it through his big toe, all the way through, and injected it into his sock."
Corey Crawford, G, Chicago Blackhawks: "There's been a bunch. [Andrew] Shaw, his whole body was banged up in 2013. His face, and he had a couple of pretty significant injuries too. When you get towards the end of a playoff run there's almost a guarantee that half the team is battling with something. It's that intense, and you have to [play through injuries] at that point. You're working so hard that somebody's battling with something."
Ben Bishop, G, Tampa Bay Lightning: "You could probably make a list. I think personally when I had a torn ligament in my wrist, so I was playing with a cast a couple of years ago for half a season, so that was more of an annoyance. But yeah, these guys play through lots. Broken foot. Broken ribs. ... We had to make [my glove] bigger. It was like a hard cast pretty much during when I played. I couldn't bend. I just couldn't bend it. I had a kind of a cast on it, so I didn't really feel much."
Cam Fowler, D, Anaheim Ducks: "My first couple of years in the playoffs, in between every period, [Toni Lydman] couldn't take his own jersey off, so the trainer would have to come in and take his jersey off for him because his shoulder was so bad. But he played the whole playoffs, didn't miss a game, so that was pretty crazy to me. Greatest guy ever too."
Nazem Kadri, C, Toronto Maple Leafs: "Probably a high ankle sprain. That's gruesome. You tweak it almost every single shift. I've seen a couple of guys play through a high ankle sprain, and you got to give them a lot of credit."
-- Joe McDonald, Craig Custance, Scott Burnside, Pierre LeBrun, Paul Grant