Eriks Mateiko received one of the biggest honors of his career last week when he was named to Latvia’s Olympic hockey team. Days later, though, Mateiko suffered a scary injury during Hershey’s 3-2 overtime loss Sunday to the Cleveland Monsters, which could impact his trip to Italy in February.
The Capitals prospect was injured and helped off the ice with 11:19 remaining in the second period after having an incident along the sideboards with Monsters defenseman Corson Ceulmans. The video was shared by Bears Hockey Nation on X.
As Mateiko guarded Ceulmans as the latter entered the offensive zone, the Bears forward collapsed in pain as he turned away from the sideboards. The Hershey telecast — and Monsters players– initially thought Mateiko had lost a skate blade in his right boot, but play was quickly whistled dead when an official noticed that the Latvian forward was writhing in pain as he struggled crawling back to the Hershey bench.
The official made multiple urgent hand motions toward Hershey’s bench, asking for the team’s head athletic trainer, Shawn Fliszar, to come onto the ice. Mateiko was then quickly helped off, where the bottom of his right leg was cradled and not touching the ice.
Ilya Protas and an official then scraped a patch of ice at the blue line afterward, suggesting Mateiko was cut in the leg by a skate blade.
Ahead of the third period, the Bears announced Mateiko would not return due to a lower-body injury. It remains unclear how severe his injury is.
Bears head coach Derek King briefly addressed the injury postgame, but did not go into details.
“Yeah, you miss him,” King said per the team. “He gives you that third-line forecheck, plays hard defensively, great penalty killer. He’s really taken on that penalty-killing role and has done a good job with it. I’ll have to see what’s happening with him and see how long he’s out for.”
While skate-cut injuries are rare, they can still occur and pierce through a player’s equipment in less-padded areas. The most recent example in the Capitals organization would be when Aliaksei Protas was cut by a skate on his left foot last April, forcing him to miss the final six games of the regular season and the first four games of the playoffs. One of the tendons in Protas’s foot was injured, causing him to miss an extended period of time.
“There’s some steps you’ve got to be careful with, especially the tendon and everything,” Protas said during the Capitals’ postseason run last year. “You’ve got to be careful. You needed to take a couple more days and needed at least a couple weeks to at least get to the point where the risk is low, and from there it’s going to get better. But you’ve got to be careful.”
January 13, update: The Hershey Bears announced that Eriks Mateiko will miss the rest of the season due to a skate cut tear to his Achilles tendon. He will miss the 2026 Winter Olympics. Full story.
