Dylan Strome’s mouth faced (pun: intended) some unbelievable bad luck twice in the same week. Strome was high-sticked twice in virtually the same spot, losing blood and at least a part of a tooth in the process.
Monday, Strome did not take the ice for practice, joining John Carlson, Nic Dowd, and Brandon Duhaime, who all took maintenance days.
“Just a hard stretch of a lot of games,” Capitals head coach Spencer Carbery said unconcerned. “So, just another day for them to rest and recuperate.”
But there was one thing Carbery did have anxiety about with Strome, however.
“He doesn’t look great today,” Carbery said. “He’s going to postpone his modeling career for a month.”
Well, about that, Coach.
Over the weekend, Strome participated in one of the more rugged Santa family photos you’ll ever see, despite his mouth being swollen and featuring a scab under the right side of his bottom lip.
Strome, seeming to find the humor in the moment, posted the picture on his Instagram Story with the grimacing emoji.
Strome’s bad luck began on Wednesday, November 27, against the Tampa Bay Lightning. With 4:03 remaining and the two teams tied 4-4, Strome was high-sticked by the blade of Anthony Cirelli’s twig right in the lower part of his mouth. Bleeding and clearly having damage to his teeth, Strome left the ice briefly but jumped back on for the four-minute power play to assist on Tom Wilson’s game-winning goal.
Three nights later, against the New Jersey Devils, Strome took a high stick from Dawson Mercer in virtually the same area. Bleeding from the mouth and chin, Strome went down the runway to the locker room, getting treatment from the team’s training staff. The Capitals scored twice on the resulting four-minute power play, getting goals from Connor McMichael and Jakob Chychrun. They would go on to win 6-5.
“Yeah, so he obviously got sutured on Jersey, and then definitely some dental work from the previous one,” Carbery revealed. The Capitals’ second-year bench boss also shared something he noticed that happened directly before Strome’s second shot to the face.
“If you watch, it’s amazing. You think you’ve seen everything in this game, and then you’ll go through a game, and you’ll be like, ‘I’ve never seen that before in my life,'” Carbery began.
“So before that play happens — and I think it’s like the turning point in the game — so it’s four-on-four. Stromer’s defending Jack Hughes. Jack Hughes spins, shoots it, and Stromer’s stick goes flying in the air and it goes into the slot. And so we’re defending, and what happens is the stick just happens to land in John Carlson’s lap, like in his arms. He doesn’t grab it, he doesn’t pick it up. It’s just sitting in Carly’s arms. And so Carly’s playing, and he’s got two sticks now: his own, and then there’s Dylan Strome’s just sitting there, and he just kind of like, is like, (gestures playing with two sticks in his arms), and Stromer grabs his stick. Two seconds later, he gets high sticked in the mouth. We go on the four-minute power play. So it was such a — when do you see like a stick go flying, and then another player’s got it, and then there’s a handoff. It was a pretty crazy sequence. I have never seen that before.
Strome’s pain was ultimately to the Capitals’ gain. The team scored three goals on the resulting power plays and won both games.
The craziest part? Last season, after Strome was hit in the face with a puck, something cosmic happened then, too. He scored six goals in five games, his best goal-scoring streak of the season, proving there’s something Hockey Magical about that Canadian head of his.
