Winnipeg Jets star Morgan Barron needed 75 stitches after taking a blade to the face and played on!

A frightening scene unfolded in Las Vegas on Tuesday night, as Winnipeg Jets forward Morgan Barron took a skate to his face during a scrum in front of the net and immediately skated off the ice.

But with this being the NHL playoffs, Barron was back on the ice less than a full period later — after getting a reported 75-plus stitches in the locker room.

With players falling down as Golden Knights goaltender Laurent Brossoit scrambled to keep a rebound out of the net nine minutes into the game, Chandler Stephenson pushed Barron into Brossoit’s skate, which caught Barron on the ride side of his face, near his eye.

But midway through the second period, Barron returned to the game – his first playoff appearance – with a large bandage covering the wound though the blood and part of the cut was still visible. His team recorded a 5-1 win over the Las Vegas Golden Knights.

Jets coach Rick Bowness said of Barron returning to action, ‘He was looking at me. ‘I’m ready.’ I said, ‘Do you need a little skate or something?’ And he goes, ‘Nope, I’m ready to go.’ And of course he went right out and he banged into someone.

Winnipeg Jets forward Morgan Barron took a skate to his face in Tuesday’s playoff game

Barron appeared to be pushed by Chandler Stephenson (right) of the Golden Knights

Barron had 75 stitches and incredibly returned to action as the Jets beat the Knights 5-1

‘That’s Winnipeg Jets hockey, that we’re all in. Morgan is a perfect example of that. Give him a lot of credit. That takes a lot of courage, to get 55 stitches, whatever the heck it was, and that was a pretty serious cut.’

Barron said that he was able to come back because the skate blade ‘missed anything important.’

He joked afterward that his first thought when it happened was ‘whether the puck went in – it was sitting pretty close.

‘They did a great job stitching me up and, obviously, it missed my eye. I was glad it didn’t get me in a real bad spot, but they did a great job fixing me up. It’s actually not bad.

‘With the cage on it’s pretty hard for anything to happen. You get hopped up on adrenaline. I was obviously really excited for my first playoff game and just kind of went from there.’ 

It conjured memories of the most horrific hockey injury back in 1989 when Clink Malarchuk of the Buffalo Sabres collided with Steve Tuttle of the St Louis Blues and teammate Uwe Krupp.

Tuttle’s blade sliced Malarchuk’s neck, severing an artery. Blood gushed out onto the ice, causing some fans to faint. The trainer on hand had to pinch the artery shut and it took 300 stitches to seal the wound.

So Barron can feel relieved at avoiding something that easily could have been so much worse. Teammate Adam Lowry said Barron’s return gave the team a big boost during the game. 

Clint Malarchuk’s throat was cut by a stray skate in an NHL game and required 300 stitches

Barron hit his face on the blade of the Vegas Golden Knights goaltender, Laurent Brossoit (39)

Blood had to be cleaned off the ice after the incident, while Barron was getting treatement

He returned with a cage over his face and played his part in an important win for his team 

‘You assume a stick, but seeing the replay and hearing about it in the intermission, and hearing the number of stitches he was getting. I thought they said 15, not 50-plus.

‘It looked like he got attacked by a shark, to be honest,’ Lowry said. ‘It’s a scary thing. 

We’re all so worried about the puck crossing the line and then all of a sudden we see a trail of blood basically from the crease all the way to the bench. You don’t know what happened. 

‘To sit on the table, get stitched up and miss basically an hour of action and come back, speaks volumes to his heart. It’s tough to come back when you’ve sat that long.’

Barron wound up playing nearly 11 minutes and recording three shots in the Jets’ 5-1 upset in the opening game of their first-round series against the No. 1 seed in the Western Conference.

Barron, 24, played 70 games in his first full season with the Jets. He had eight goals and 13 assists — both career highs.