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Sami Salo heads to hospital; O’Brien bloodied

While the Vancouver Canucks are doing a great job of playing a perfect road game, up 2-0 3-0 in the second period, they are now facing a serious shortage on the blue line.

Defenseman Sami Salo took a puck somewhere off his midsection at the end of the first period, and was down on the ice for a good amount of time before finally being gingerly helped off the ice. At first it seemed he may have been hit on the wrist, but then word came that not only was he out for the game but was being taken to the hospital on a stretcher.

We have no word on what the specific injury is, although judging by the camera shots of him being loaded into the ambulance it may be for purely precautionary reasons. Seeing how he reacted to the hit, and the new he was headed to the hospital, immediately you start to think about possible internal injuries from the puck hitting an unprotected part of his body.

Nevertheless, we won’t speculate and wait for word on his injury (as much as they’ll fill us in). In the meantime, the Canucks lost another defensemen in the second period when Shane O’Brien took a Dustin Byfuglien stick off the forehead. He was taken off the ice, gushing blood onto the ice and at first it looked like he might be in danger of not returning.

Of course, this is hockey. O’Brien received a couple of butterfly stitches and was right back out on the ice at the end of the second period.