Graphic video: Ice hockey player gets 90 stitches after receiving skate to face

New York Islanders defenseman Johnny Boychuk clutches his face after being hit by a skate. Photo / AP

Graphic warning - video of incident below

An ice hockey player has been lucky to escape serious injury to his eyes after receiving a skate to the face in an NHL game yesterday.

New York Islanders defenseman Johnny Boychuk was cut when he was hit in the face by Artturi Lehkonen's skate as the Canadiens' left wing fell forward.

Boychuk was down on the ice briefly before he got up and skated off the ice with his hand covering his face.

New York Islanders President and General Manager Lou provided an update overnight.

"Johnny Boychuk is OK. There has been no damage to his eye," Lamoriello said.

"Fortunately, it was just the eyelid that took 90 stitches to fix. A plastic surgeon took care of it. I don't want to exaggerate with the stitches because they do very small stitches, but there were 90 of them. He'll be fine. It's just a matter of time with the eye opening up and him feeling good."

"His eye is closed because of the stitches," Lamoriello said. "There's no damage to the eye so there's no time frame of something healing. It's just when his eye opens up and he feels comfortable. When he has no headaches or anything. He was here first thing this morning," he added.

It's not the first near-miss for Boychuk who also took a skate to the neck in a February last season.

"You never want to see that happen to anyone," teammate Josh Bailey said.

"We were all really worried about him. After the game he sent a nice text to all of us. Definitely happy to see him doing well."