The nightmares return in March. The sting of the blade and the escaping blood. Clint Malarchuk can feel it as clear as he did on March 22, 1989, when a skate cut the goalie’s throat during a goalmouth collision at the Buffalo Auditorium. It was three decades ago, but the memory haunts — as inescapable as the bullet still lodged his head, from the spring day he tried to end his life 20 years later.



“I wake up screaming and grabbing my neck,” Malarchuk says. “It’s not just a bad dream. … That’s usually when I have my biggest struggles, the anniversary of my suicide attempt and the anniversary of the jugular vein. I have to be conscious of these things.”



Malarchuk suffered from Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and anxiety long before the infamous incident that defined his NHL career. But those challenges intensified with post-traumatic stress in the injury’s aftermath, spiralling him into depression and...