Jack Hughes Injury into boards

UPDATE: According to New Jersey Devils General Manager: Tom Fitzgerald. Jack Hughes has a right shoulder injury and is listed as week-to-week.
As predicted in this video, details of a right shoulder injury are discussed.

New Jersey Devils player Jack Hughes was injured in the game on Friday night against the St Louis Blues when he slides hard into the end boards.

Welcome back everyone, my name is Dr. Stefan Wilson and the purpose of this channel is to help you better understand the mechanism of sports injuries.

Now we saw Jack Hughes slide heavily into the end boards where both the right side of his body and the right side of his head make contact with the boards. First off, my immediate concern for Jack here is that the side of his head hit hard into the boards. He will of course will need to be evaluated for a concussion. That is the first thing, but what also goes with that is that even though he is of course wearing a helmet, it is the side of his head that makes contact with the boards. The area of his skull that makes contact is called the pterion.

Now this is important because it is generally regarded as being the weakest part of your skull as there are numerous bones that all connect in this area. Your frontal, sphenoid, parietal and temporal bones make up this sort of junction. You also have a very important vasculature structure underneath the bones called your middle menningeal artery. Now realistically perhaps a head injury here would only involve a concussion but I just wanted to mention some of the important and interesting anatomy here.

A neck injury such as a strain or burner or stinger is a possibility which can affect any part of the soft tissue that surrounds the nerve and nerve roots in your neck. That can be quite painful.

More likely though, perhaps here, when we look at the impact again, an injury to his right shoulder is likely. A fracture to his clavicle is possible as well as a sprain to his AC, or acromio-clavicular joint or SC, his sterno-clavicular joint. Any type of injury to those areas can be very painful and certainly enough to cause Hughes to have to leave the game. I want to also mention
that the internal structure of his shoulder, you know, the ball and socket joint could also have affected. Your shoulder labrum is an important piece of cartilage that allows the ball within the socket to rotate and pivot easily and smoothly. Any disruption to that cartilage can also be a significant injury.

Aside from the human anatomy, there is also the anatomy of the hockey rink to think about as well. The lower part of the boards in a hockey rink is called the dasher and the area that is painted yellow is by far the most firm. The part of the boards that is closer to the glass does have some amount of give and flex to it in order to absorb impact from bodychecks. But the closer you get to the yellow part, the more firm and rigid the boards become. So to slide into the boards at the bottom, this will increase the amount impact onto your let’s body frame. Your bones, joints, muscles and connective tissue.

Jack Hughes most likely suffered an upper body injury Friday night and will likely be further evaluated on Saturday. Until next time.