Penguins defenseman John Marino wore a full face shield to play hockey for his three seasons at Harvard.
This season, he turned pro and immediately went to the NHL, hockey’s most dangerous level. Marino took the full face shield off, replacing it with a visor.
That brings us to the Penguins game Thursday at Tampa. Marino took a puck to the face courtesy of a Steven Stamkos slap shot. Bones were broken. Surgery was performed Monday. Marino is out three to six weeks. The Penguins sustain another big injury blow.
If Marino is wearing a full face shield, he’s shaken up. No big deal.
NHL players should be required to wear full face shields, like they are in college.
AP
Harvard University defenseman John Marino (12) looks to push the puck away from Boston University forward Ty Amonte (3) during a NCAA hockey game, Tuesday, Jan. 8, 2019, in Boston.
Hockey is dangerous. It is full contact. Heads are exposed to sticks, pucks, fists, skate blades, elbow pads as hard as steel, unforgiving boards, etc. Yet, full face shields are not mandatory. They are, in fact, illegal at the NHL level unless medically mandated.
We constantly pay lip service to the dangers of head trauma in sports. But the leagues don’t care. Nor do the players. It’s their heads, but the stupidity is appalling.
Visors weren’t even mandatory in the NHL until the 2013-14 season. Those playing without were grandfathered in, and 19 NHL players still don’t wear visors.
Arguments against the full face shield ring absurdly false.
The effect on vision is annoying but hardly crippling.
If it creates a culture of high hits, there already are plenty of those to go around.
Is personality diluted? That doesn’t seem a problem in the NFL.
Players say they like to feel the wind in their face. But it is not a scene from “Titanic.”
Full face shields would put a big kibosh on fighting. Hockey traditionalists would hate that. But pugilism in the NHL is at an all-time low, dropping 70% since 2008.
There is no good argument against full face shields.
But the NHL is unlikely to ever mandate them. The NHL moves slowly even when disaster crops up.
Bill Masterton died of massive head injuries in 1968 when he hit his head on the ice. The NHL didn’t require helmets until 1979. Bryan Berard took a stick to his right eye in 2000, going legally blind in that eye. The NHL didn’t require visors until 2013.
Of worry to the Penguins is Marino’s absence. The Penguins’ defensive corps is among the league’s best when its top six members are healthy. But if one or two are missing, it gets meh in a hurry.
Chad Ruhwedel has performed beyond expectations in his 31 games. He’s solid, but do the Penguins want him in the lineup for their first playoff game?
Jake Guentzel is certain to be out longer than Marino, so the Penguins’ trade priorities likely still revolve around acquiring a winger.
But the New York Rangers reportedly want a first-round pick plus an NHL regular for winger Chris Kreider. That NHL regular is not Nick Bjugstad or Alex Galchenyuk.
That’s a lot to give for Kreider, even if GM Jim Rutherford subbed a prospect for the NHL regular. Kreider isn’t Marian Hossa. He guarantees little. Kreider has quality but seems unlikely to push the Penguins over the top. He’s the best of the rental wingers.
But a legit regular defenseman — New Jersey’s Sami Vatanen comes to mind — would cost as much as or more than a top-six winger.
Rutherford might do better to pay a lesser price for a lesser winger who seems a good fit for Sidney Crosby or Evgeni Malkin and hope Marino returns sooner, not later.
“Win now” is the Penguins’ philosophy.
But if Rutherford pays a big price to “win now” and the Penguins don’t, it’s just a bad trade. There might not be a player available who can make that big of a difference.
