Disaster Narrowly Avoided In A Collision Involving Cutter Gauthier And Auston Matthews

In recent years, we've seen some horrific accidents on the ice in the NHL, AHL and around the world in hockey, and unfortunately, with players on skates, it's hard to avoid potential accidents.

While plenty of measures have been taken to protect players, it's hard to avoid every situation, and in a Sunday clash between the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Anaheim Ducks, we very nearly saw another one.

With captain Auston Matthews playing the puck, Ducks defenseman Cutter Gauthier tried to pressure the Maple Leafs star, but as the two collided, Gauthier's skate followed through and missed the face of Matthews by mere inches.

Fortunately, the skate did ultimately miss Matthews' face, but given the potential danger and likelihood that in the NHL one day, we will see a player take a skate to the face and cause major damage, we may one day also see players forced to wear a full bubble to protect their face.

That won't be anytime soon however, as it hasn't yet happened in a major NHL or AHL game on a big stage, and until the unfortunate incident does occur, players at the top level will continue to play hard and simply hope that nothing like this would happen.

For now though, we're all very thankful that Matthews didn't suffer an unfortunate incident by taking a skate to the face, and with pucks to the face being scary enough, hopefully we don't see anything like this happen at all in the NHL.