NHL raises question of mandating cut-resistant gear after Evander Kane injury

They were also shown a clip of a player who wore a cut-resistant sock and how it protected him against a major Achilles injury when a skate contacted his leg. Managers were reminded of the four cut-resistant material brands available to teams.

The NHL Players’ Association has always advocated for player freedom of equipment choice. But are we inching closer to a time when the NHL will ask the union to collectively bargain the mandatory use of cut-resistant under garments in exposed areas of the body?

NHL senior EVP of hockey operations Colin Campbell said Tuesday the league is talking about just that.

Remember: The NHL and NHLPA resisted the mandate of visors until the 2013-14 season. Now only a handful of ‘grandfathered’ players still play without one. It was a common-sense change to increase player safety. 

The same might be necessary now. From from Clint Malarchuk to Richard Zednik to Ilya Mikheyev to Kane, few other on-ice dangers quite literally bring players to the potential brink of death like skate cuts do. Players are flying around at 25 miles an hour with sharp metal knives attached to their feet.

“It’s tough to get players to change what they have. They just don’t want to change – even though their wife or mother would probably tell you that they want them to wear this,” Campbell said Tuesday. “We make it available and we need the players’ consent to mandate it. We’ve talked about it, at some point in time like we did the visors, [the idea of] grandfathering [in] cut-resistant material. Because it was a serious [injury].”

Daily Faceoff contacted the NHLPA for response on Tuesday but did not immediately receive a response on the issue. One GM said on Tuesday that his staff “strongly encourages” every player to wear cut-resistant gear, but said that no matter how much it is encouraged, not every player will comply so long as it isn’t mandated.

Campbell acknowledged that complete change is impossible without the NHLPA on-board. How close is the NHL to having that conversation?

“We have it all the time,” Campbell said. “Things like this [the Kane injury], you get closer. We can’t mandate it as a league, but you would hope we could. We work with the companies to make it as easy as possible to change over to the cut-resistant material. I don’t know if you’ll ever get them to wear the longer [cuff] gloves … but again, it’s a player’s choice.”