Joni Pitkanen injury: Hurricanes defenseman out with broken heel

Unfortunately, such an occurrence will be delayed for far longer than expected. In addition to impacting the Hurricanes defense corps, the injury will also impact Finland’s Olympic team as Pitkanen seemingly would have been on the roster.

Icing has been a heavily debated topic over the years, as the dangers of the play have become increasingly more evident. The NHL has decided to proactively look for alternatives as the league will experiment with a hybrid-icing system during the 2013 exhibition portion of the schedule. At the conclusion of the exhibition season, the NHL and the NHL Players’ Association will vote on whether the rule change will be adopted for the regular season.

That didn’t look good at all.

As the Carolina broadcasters discuss in the clip, injuries like this could be prevented if the NHL adopted the hybrid icing system, so expect this latest incident to renew calls for the league to explore such a rule change. It’s probably long past time the NHL went to the new system -- the risk to players on plays like this one is just too great.