KHL's Denis Sokolov Gets Carotid Artery Slashed

Ice hockey is a very dangerous game. It is one of the most physical games around. Every shift you have people trying to take you off of the puck via stick check, slash or body check. All of this is taking place while the players are skating on blades of steel at very high speeds.

It is good that incidents involving a players a skate are not more frequent. But, they are not non existent. Clint Malarchuck, playing for the Buffalo Sabres in 1989, had his throat cut after an opposing player slid into the crease and collided with Malarchuk. 

Taylor Hall was on the wrong end of his own teams skate when he went down during warm up and his teammate tried to jump over him, 30 stitches later, and Hall has a pretty gnarly scare on the left side of his forhead.

Most recently, in the KHL, in a game between Yekaterinburg and Traktor Chelyabinsk, Denis Sokolov was added to this unfortunate club. The incident is at around the 1:10 mark of the video after the jump.

Can The Kings Repeat?

Having a championship team win in back-to-back seasons is a difficult feat. Doing so in the NHL is even harder. The last time a team was able to defend their Championship was in 1997 and 1998 when the Detroit Red Wings won the Stanley Cup in consecutive seasons.

So now comes the question will the Los Angeles Kings, the 2012 Stanley Cup champions, be able to fend off the rest of the NHL and repeat in 2013?