Player Health in the NHL: CBA, Culture changes are inevitable and needed

 

The 2021 NHL offseason involved plenty of drama with players like Jack Eichel and Robin Lehner voicing their concerns about how NHL organizations handle their players’ health. Their concerns are valid. And they raise the alarms on the NHL’s poor history of player safety involving injuries. 

The NHL, for decades, has ignored the mishandling of player health. Former NHLer Derek Boogard died of an overdose after his playing career because his team doctors had overprescribed Derek’s pain medication. The NHL is the same league that has disregarded CTE in its sport for decades. This gross incompetence of player safety has led to long-term brain damage and even death to some of its former players. 

The NHL is also widely renowned for being “the toughest league” because of the injuries NHLers play through. This reputation should not be praised by anybody in the sports world. Playing with broken bones, concussions, and torn ligaments should not be congratulated or commended. The only thing playing with injuries causes is the usage of more painkillers and long-term damage to their bodies and brains. 

There are quite a few examples of players playing through injuries:

-Joe Thornton playing through a torn ACL and MCL in 2018

-Erik Karlsson playing through foot fractures in both feet and ankle muscle damage in 2017

-Alec Martinez playing through a broken foot in 2021

-Derek Stepan playing through a broken jaw in 2014

These are only the few that got a lot of recognition in the media over the past years. There are a lot of other injuries players will play through (especially in the playoffs) that go mostly unnoticed. 

By far, one of the worst things about this culture is that the players who choose not to play through injuries for their team tend to be looked down upon by their team’s coaches, management, fans, and even teammates. 

Vegas goaltender Robin Lehner sustained a concussion in February that kept him out of action for a month. Robin Lehner has been a big advocate for advancing mental health in the NHL and has called for more concern for the mental health of his fellow players. People around NHL circles speculated that Robin did not have a concussion. Instead, Robin lied about sustaining a head injury to take a mental health break. The lack of concern for players’ health that stems from hockey culture. Trying to bully someone who is dealing with injuries to play through it is already bad enough, but bringing up a person’s mental health and thinking of them as a liar is a deeper and far more sinister thought process that needs to change around the hockey world.

“That’s also why the stigma is hard for the progress of people getting better, because people have to hide it before people talk and say these things. I think I should get the benefit of the doubt because I’ve been honest with it. If I had those issues again, which are not happening, I would be honest about it.”  -Robin Lehner

Robin Lehner has also been outspoken about the mishandling of his injuries during his time with the Buffalo Sabres. 

"I had a high ankle sprain. They had me on a bike one week after I had fully torn everything, worst-grade ankle sprain. One week after, they put me on a bike with a special boot. I should have been walking on it maybe six to eight weeks after I got it. They had me doing leg presses with like 300 pounds three weeks into it, and I re-sprained everything and ended up having surgery.” -Robin Lehner from The Cam and Strick Podcast

NHL team doctors will do their best for the player. But at the same time, they can be pressured by their organization to get the player back on the ice as quickly as possible, rather than focusing on fully healing a player’s injury. It traces back to what hockey culture preaches. Play through the pain, or try to get back as quickly as possible, no matter the long-term damage or effects. 

Buffalo tried to do this very thing to Jack Eichel over the summer. Jack sustained a herniated disk in his neck after taking a hit from Casey Cizikis in March. Jack does not want to get fusion surgery on his neck, as it would cause him to sustain further damage and require more surgery down the road. Jack and his agent want him to get an artificial disk replacement surgery. The Sabres do not want this, citing that “it has never been done on an NHL player before.” Eichel and his camp have been very loud in voicing their desire for Jack to get traded away from Buffalo. 

Robin chimed in on the Eichel situation while on The Cam and Strick Podcast,

“Eichel said it himself, he doesn’t make his decisions about his body it’s not him...Eichel wanted to have another surgery, he thought he was allowed to do what he wants with his body.” -Robin Lehner

Eichel should have the ability to choose what to do with his body, but the NHL CBA’s rules do not agree. There is a rule in the CBA where an NHL team by law, can choose what kind of treatment to give to an injured player. There was recently a modification to the NHL CBA during the extension of the current CBA, where a player can get a second opinion from outside the organization, and the team doctor must give “due consideration to their recommendations” 

“A Player is entitled to obtain a second medical opinion from a physician(s) of his choice who is not on the Second Medical Opinion List and has not received advance approval from the Club as set out in Subsection 34.4(c) (the “Player’s physician”). The costs of such opinion shall be borne by the Player. Upon the Player’s request, the Club shall provide the Player with all relevant medical information from the Player’s records to provide to the Player’s physician. The Player shall provide all such relevant records to the Player’s physician. The Club Physician shall determine the diagnosis or course of treatment (including the timing thereof) after considering any report or other records received from the Player’s physician and after giving due consideration to their recommendations.” 

-NHL/NHLPA Memorandum of Understanding. #37, Page 19.

Jack Eichel used this second opinion to try and change Buffalo’s mind about giving him the Fusion surgery on his neck. The team’s doctor decided against Jack and the medical opinion of his personal doctor. The Sabres doctors will not allow Jack to get the Artificial Disk Replacement. The NHL CBA allows for NHL teams to be in complete control of these situations. Even with the second opinion modification in the CBA. That is why Jack is not going to training camp, and why he is failing physicals with the Sabres, he is trying to force his way out of this terrible situation that the NHL CBA allows.

The Sabres do not want Jack to get what he wants, rather they want Jack to “prove his loyalty” to the organization by getting surgery worse for his long-term health only because the artificial disk replacement “has never been done on an NHL player before.” Yet this surgery has been proven for as long as it has been around to be a safe and successful surgery for whoever gets it. Buffalo’s logic does not make any sense. This IS the Sabres so nothing should be surprising when it comes to ineptitude and poor logic with this “organization”. 

The NHLPA has some serious thinking before the current CBA ends on September 15th, 2026. The organizations in the NHL and the heads of the league have proven time and time again that they are not capable of properly handling a player’s health and safety. Yet the CBA allows these shady practices around the NHL. Player safety is not a concern for the NHL, and the players in the NHL are the ones suffering the most from it.

The NHLPA will surely push the NHL owners to change this ruling in the CBA. This would allow players the final say on what to do with their health. The worst case is that a mediator could be used in these scenarios. To decide what the best course of action is for both parties in these situations in the future. Whatever the change may be, the NHLPA needs to begin the push for better player care and player safety in the new CBA deal. The NHL and its culture of player abuse will not change until the CBA does.