The puck went through the crossbar and stopped in the eye of the goalkeeper.
Jesse Virtanen (photo from 2019 in Färjestad’s shirt) hit the puck through Daniel Kral’s mask. AOP, ZUMAWIRE / MVPHOTOS
In the training match between the Swiss Ambri-Piotta and the Czech Liberec on Friday, September 1st, a scary situation was seen, when Ambri-Piotta’s Finnish defender Jesse Virtanen hit the puck by the goalkeeper Daniel Kralin through the mask.
Swiss Blick magazine according to the report, the young goalkeeper Kral, 20, lost consciousness from the blow and suffered an eye injury. According to current information, Kral was spared from worse injuries and his eye will recover.
There was a lot of bad luck in the situation. Liberec, which plays in the Czech main league, shared a photo of the goalkeeper’s mask on social media, which shows that the puck shot by Virtanen went through the mesh of the mask. If the image does not appear below, you can view it from this link.
– If you’ve never seen anything like this, just for the record, neither have we, Liberec wrote in connection with the photo.
Interviewed by Blick magazine, Virtanen said that Ambri-Piotta was playing superior when Virtanen scored a “normal shot” from the blue line. The player of the Swiss team was wearing a mask, and the puck hit the goalkeeper’s helmet.
– It was just a really, really unfortunate situation, Virtanen said.
After this, Kral fell on the surface of the ice. Teammates helped the goalkeeper off the field.
– If the puck hadn’t stopped on my head, it probably would have gone completely through the crossbar, Kral said of Liberec in an interview published on the website.