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Three NHL players have fallen victim to unbelievably bizarre off-ice injuries this season

Preston Hodgkinson
Preston Hodgkinson
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Dec 2 2025, 3:27 pm
Three NHL players have fallen victim to unbelievably bizarre off-ice injuries this season
Stephen R. Sylvanie/Imagn Images

Three NHL players have been hit with some unusual injuries through the first two months of the season.

Injuries are nothing new to the sport, with players going down with various sprains, torn muscles, and concussions on a nightly basis. Hockey is physical, and there are bound to be plenty of issues that will affect a player’s physical ability. From time to time, there will also be the odd non-hockey injury that turns some heads.

Some notable ones over the years include the infamous incident where LA Kings forward Dustin Penner suffered a back spasm while leaning over to eat pancakes, and when Colorado Avalanche legend Joe Sakic suffered a serious hand injury in a snowblower accident.

There are no pancakes or snowblowers taking players victim this time around, but there have been some strange off-ice incidents thus far. Here is a look at the three weirdest ones we’ve seen…

Jack Hughes, New Jersey Devils

The highest-profile player to suffer a rather unusual injury is New Jersey Devils superstar Jack Hughes.

The middle child of the Hughes brothers has had some trouble staying healthy over the last few years, having been limited to 62 games in each of the past two seasons. Those injuries dealt with shoulder issues, but Hughes’ current one is a bit different.

After playing in the Devil’s first 17 games of the season, it was reported in mid-November that Hughes suffered a finger injury at a team dinner. The incident allegedly involved the former first-overall pick slipping and cutting his finger in a “fluke accident.”

The Devils confirmed that Hughes had undergone surgery on his finger, which will keep him out of the lineup for at least eight weeks. The injury will be reevaluated after six weeks.

It’s a huge blow to the Devils, and must be frustrating for Hughes, who is trying to string together a healthy season.

Eetu Luostarinen, Florida Panthers

For many hockey players, the appeal of playing professional hockey in a climate like Florida is too big to pass up.

You get all the joys of playing a winter sport without ever having to worry about cold weather or snowy conditions. One Florida Panthers player, however, may have enjoyed the nice weather a bit too much.

Finnish forward Eetu Luostarinen was lights out for the Panthers in last year’s Stanley Cup playoff run, and appeared to be hitting a new level this season. Yet, just 18 games into the campaign, the 27-year-old was sidelined with an injury that involved burns.

According to Panthers head coach Paul Maurice, Luostarinen sustained these burns during a “barbecue mishap,” and he was given the status of week-to-week.

Luostarinen has missed six games so far with this injury, and there still isn’t a concrete date set for his return.

Alexey Toropchenko, St. Louis Blues

Luostarinen wasn’t the only player to go down with a bizarre burn-related injury.

Just a few weeks after the Panthers forward went down in his BBQ accident, a seemingly similar thing happened to Alexey Toropchenko of the St. Louis Blues. The Blues announced on Monday that Toropchenko suffered “scalding burns to his legs” in an official release.

St. Louis head coach Jim Montgomery did not explicitly say how the burns happened, leaving a bit of a mystery to the situation.

Similar to Luostarinen, the prognosis was week-to-week for the Blues forward, with no return date set in stone.

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