20 Scariest Hits in NHL History (Video)

If at no other time, the voices of the NHL and its member clubs become the voices of the collective hockey fanbase and humanity in general when they observe a downed player and say, “We hope he’ll be okay.”

Whether it is a blatantly suspendable check, an altogether clean hit endured by a player with a shaky health record or an honest, yet unfortunate mishap, those are what always elicit such a message.

Just to clear this up in advance, you will not find any infamous stick-swings or sucker-punches in this slideshow, for those do not qualify as “hits.” These are cross-checks, hits from behind and/or hits to the head or in a few cases, perfectly clean checks that are dealt to a player with a worrisome concussion history.

Based primarily on the nature of the hit and immediate sight of the recipient in the aftermath, the 20 most disconcerting in NHL history are recounted as follows in chronological order.

1933: Eddie Shore on Ace Bailey

In at least one historical account of this incident, former Bailey teammate Red Horner believed that he had drawn Shore’s ire with a hit in one end and that the future Hall of Fame Bruin pursued Bailey in a case of mistaken identity.

Shore’s vengeful hit from behind on Bailey caused the Maple Leafs’ star to strike his head on the ice, requiring emergency surgery to preserve his life, which was not assured for at least two weeks.

Massive tension stemming from the incident took even more time to taper off, but Bailey himself helped bring closure two months later at an All-Star game meant to help pay for his ongoing medical treatment. Shore was permitted to play for the NHL team against the host Maple Leafs and shook hands with Bailey prior to the opening faceoff.

1950: Teeder Kennedy on Gordie Howe

In this case, the fact that there was no hit was what brought on the scary aspect. There is also no video evidence readily accessible, but this scare is still so well-documented that one would be remiss not to mention it on this list.

During a 1950 Toronto-Detroit playoff tilt, Kennedy was the intended recipient of a hit by Howe, but upon dodging his opponent, he let the hard-charging Howe collide face-first with the boards.

Only 22 years old at the time and as it later turned out, with three full decades of competitive hockey ahead of him, Howe nearly lost his livelihood, or worse, on this play. As it happened, a fractured skull ended his 1949-50 season, but he was remarkably out of the hospital and in attendance to celebrate when his Red Wings won the Cup a few weeks later.

By the next autumn, he was ready to play the full season and ultimately tallied a new career-high and team-best 43 goals and 86 points.

1963: Vic Hadfield on Lou Fontinato

From about the 15-second mark of the clip onward, you can see the Rangers’ Hadfield converge with the Canadiens’ Fontinato in the corner with the most horrid results. A resultant neck injury instantly spelled the end of the 31-year-old’s playing days.

1985: Peter Stastny on Ed Hospodar

After watching Hospodar biff his brother, Anton, in the upper back, Peter Stastny pursued a much more egregious act of vengeance. His cross-check to the back of Hospodar’s head dislodged the Flyer defenseman’s helmet and left the victim doubled over for several minutes.

1987: Dave Brown on Tomas Sandstrom

Although the Rangers’ Sandstrom managed to pull himself up within a minute of Brown’s blatant hit to the head after the whistle, his inability to retain his balance was a most alarming sight. He was subsequently hospitalized with fears of head and jaw injuries.

As if that weren’t enough, Brown’s reputation and all but universally interpreted intent to injure was frightful all on its own.

1987: Dale Hunter on Joe Nieuwendyk

Remarkably, Nieuwendyk did not miss any games as a result of this hit, even playing the next night when his Flames visited Pittsburgh.

Nonetheless, the way he helplessly sprawled on his back after Hunter ran him into the glass at the end of the Washington bench was as unsettling as any other potentially injurious cheap shot.

1993: Dale Hunter on Pierre Turgeon

One of the unalienable rights for a hockey player is to briefly relinquish the keep-your-head-up principle as soon as the clock stops. More than anything, when a goal is scored, the successful party is entitled to a safe haven of celebration for at least half a minute.

Hunter violated all of that when Turgeon embarrassed him to deposit a crucial goal for the Islanders against Hunter’s Capitals in the 1993 playoffs. Within seconds, the frustrated power forward caught Turgeon from his blindside and thrust him into the wall, resulting in head and shoulder injuries for the victim and an unprecedented 21-game suspension for the perpetrator.

1996: Claude Lemieux on Kris Draper

As entertaining as the Avalanche-Red Wings rivalry from the late 1990s and early 2000s was, the moment many underline as its starting point was nothing short of regrettable.

1996: Francois Leroux on Pat LaFontaine

Leroux did just about everything he shouldn’t have done as he and LaFontaine converged on the high slot of his defensive zone. Rather than continue to back in and keep himself between LaFontaine and his netminder, as any responsible backchecker does, he approached the puck-carrying Sabre and let his arm make contact with LaFontaine’s head.

LaFontaine’s loss of his helmet as he fell to the ice spoke especially to the impact, which reopened concerns of his health history. Fears were realized when he managed only seven more games before shutting down for the 1996-97 season and then retiring altogether the next year after 67 appearances with the Rangers.

1998: Craig Ludwig on Teemu Selanne

After Selanne successfully circumvented Ludwig along the boards en route to behind the cage, the Dallas defenseman caught up to the celestial Anaheim forward and left his feet as his elbow threw Selanne’s head into the glass.

Fortunately, Selanne missed no games and even scored a playmaker hat trick two nights later. But at the time of the hit, watching Ludwig’s delivery and Selanne’s fall, the prospects for the latter’s health were in natural question.

2000: Scott Stevens on Eric Lindros

As ESPN’s Darren Pang made clear, it was hard to find much fault in Stevens’ action on its own. The frightful element of this hit stemmed entirely from the fact that Lindros had endured five other concussions in the past, including three in the calendar year of 2000.

The one he suffered via Stevens in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference finals made four in a span of five months and two in a span of 23 days. It would mark his last game for another 16 months before he converted to the New York Rangers and suited up on Oct. 5, 2001.

2001: Tie Domi on Scott Niedermayer

Domi was promptly banned for the rest of the postseason when he elbowed the Devils’ defenseman in the dying seconds of Game 4 of the Eastern Conference semifinals.

Based on Domi’s reputation and the sight of Niedermayer unable to rise under his own power, it was all but universally viewed as a fitting sentence at the time. Although, Niedermayer was ultimately able to return to action within 12 days and play New Jersey’s last 11 playoff games en route to a championship loss to Colorado.

Still, it could have been worse, and Domi's unprovoked attack sadly came as little surprise.

2003: Scott Stevens on Paul Kariya

ABC analyst John Davidson was apt to underline the chronic concussion specter that hovered over Kariya. Not unlike Lindros three years prior, Stevens had laid out one of the league’s most fragile stars in a playoff game, specifically the second period in Game 6 of the Cup final.

Fortunately, fear soon gave way to pleasant astonishment as Kariya returned to the bench and to the ice and slugged home a highlight-reel goal before the Zamboni made its next appearance.

2006: Brian Campbell on R.J. Umberger

Umberger’s clearly dazed face was the most unsettling effect of this collision with the Buffalo blueliner in the opening game of the 2006 postseason.

2007: Steve Downie on Dean McAmmond

There have not been many charging infractions where the perpetrator's skates are as high off the ice as Downie’s were when he lunged into McAmmond in this preseason tilt. The former’s suspension and the latter’s injury kept both parties out of regular-season action until November of that year.

Upon announcing Downie’s 20-game ban, then-NHL disciplinarian Colin Campbell said it best: “It’s a hit that as soon as you see it live, you think ‘This is going to be a bad one.’”

2007: Randy Jones on Patrice Bergeron

NESN’s Gord Kluzak (as he mentions in the video), WBZ’s Dave Goucher and Bob Beers and the Boston Globe’s Fluto Shinzawa all voiced painful memories of former Boston University player Travis Roy when this happened in the first month of the 2007-08 season.

The hit wiped out the remainder of Bergeron’s season and a few aftershock concussions followed in successive years. But he has also steadily regained his pre-injury form and tallied the clincher when the Bruins won the Cup in 2011, which goes with a 2010 Olympic gold medal on his trophy case.

2009: David Koci on Mike Green

Hits from behind are simply the worst, but especially those in which the victim’s head comes into contact with the glass or boards. The egregiousness of Koci’s actions against Green was amplified by the shaking pane of glass on contact.

2010-11: Matt Cooke and Matt Hunwick on Marc Savard

The unsuspecting Savard was felled by Cooke’s elbow, and though this still technically remains to be seen, would be effectively finished with the competitive game less than a year later.

As was the case with the Stevens-Lindros incident, the second part of this slide was all in the fact that Savard was barely 10 months removed from the Cooke incident. It had been less than two months since his belated start to the 2010-11 season.

The most natural fears of Bruins fans were soon realized when it was confirmed that this check by Hunwick re-concussed Savard and ended his campaign, and quite likely his career.

2011: Zdeno Chara on Max Pacioretty

In an encounter similar to the aforementioned Hunter-Nieuwendyk incident, the young Habs forward was sent face-first into the stanchion separating the player benches on a hit by the towering Bruins captain.

Having sustained a concussion and neck injury, Pacioretty was remarkably able to leave the hospital within 48 hours. But the scene immediately after the hit had all parties involved shaken up over the ensuing days.

By the next season, the NHL had redesigned its stanchions and Pacioretty had returned to lead his team in scoring and win the Masterton Trophy.

2012: Raffi Torres on Marian Hossa

In recent memory, Torres’ action is among the few that rivals Downie’s as a magnet for censure.

First-year league disciplinarian Brendan Shanahan thoroughly explained the multitude of violations in one of his longest suspension explanation videos of the season.

The 25-game suspension after the game finally brought justice to Torres when the on-ice officials did not, as they did not witness the hit on Hossa. Nor did they utilize the lengthy injury-induced timeout to check the video and find out why the Blackhawks star was being attended to.