Mats Zuccarello's Injury Turned Out To Be Terrifying

The Rangers season might have gone very differently if they hadn’t lost fifth-leading scorer Mats Zuccarello in the last game of the opening round against Pittsburgh. The Rangers winger was struck in the head with a slapshot, left the game, and never returned.

(It was also Ryan McDonagh accidentally helping to put Henrik Lundqvist out of action for a couple of months during the regular season.)

This being hockey, the injury was described only as an “upper-body injury.” We all assumed it was a concussion, but when he met with the media today, Zuccarello explained it was much worse than that:

The 27-year-old Zuccarello recently signed a four-year, $18 million extension with New York that will kick in next season.