Wings' Miller almost lost eye, wants to play next game

Drew Miller went from petrified to practicing in 16 hours.

Like a typical hockey player, the Detroit Red Wings forward was back at work today, his face protected by a cage, his desire to contribute greater than the fear he had felt the night before, when a fluke event sent him fleeing off the ice wondering whether he'd lost his right eye.

"I feel very blessed the skate didn't hit my eye," Miller said. "Very lucky."

Miller bore the visual after-effects of being struck by skate of Ottawa Senators forward Mark Stone in the opening minutes of the game. Miller needed 50-60 stitches, in varying layers of his lacerated skin, and has a scar that runs like a lightning strike from the inner corner of right eyelash across his cheekbone. His right orbital bone is swollen and purple.

As bad as it looks, his vision is fine.

"Right now, it's just dealing with the cut and the stitches and the soreness," he said. "Other than that, my eye is good, and when I got on the ice today, I felt pretty good."

Miler didn't rule out playing Thursday, when the Wings host the Boston Bruins.

He was injured after a face-off, when Stone fell forward and his right leg swept backward, his skate blade slashing into Miller's face. Miller wears a visor, but Stone's skate caught him from beneath and cut up, something no visor could deter.

"Right away, I knew something bad had happened," Miller said. "My first reaction was to get off the ice and get as close to the doctors as I could. I didn't know what was cut, exactly. I knew it was my eye area, so I wasn't sure if my eye was gone or what was going on."

It took a little bit of time to figure out what the damage was -- and wasn't -- because "there was so much blood, and I was holding a towel up against it," Miller said. "So there was a lot of blood in my eye area, so I couldn't see as well. But once they got it cleaned out, I was able to look with both eyes at the doctor. It was a big relief, there. Very fortunate and happy that nothing bad happened there."

What happened next is something only seen in hockey. Miller figured if he could see, he could play.

"I wanted to come back in for the third," he said. "It took a while to get stitched up, I was back there for a while, but all the doctors came to the conclusion -- and my wife -- that I probably shouldn't go back out, just for the sake of not ripping the stitches. It was pretty deep, too, in the cheek area, so just let my body rest and not go back out there with whatever emotional drain I had from it.

"I would like to play tomorrow. We have to talk to some more doctors and see how my face reacts in the next 24 hours, see if the swelling gets worse."

Players are used to seeing a teammate injured, but when it looks as bad as it did with Miller, there's a little extra attention paid to updates. "I couldn't believe how bad it was," Justin Abdelkader said. "I could tell when he skated off the ice that he was in a lot of pain, he was really scared. He knew something bad happened, looking at his facial expression.

"Everyone after the period got word that he was going to be all right. Everyone was worried, but we got word pretty quick."

Senators forward Bobby Ryan, a former teammate of Miller in Anaheim, called to make sure Miller was OK.

Miller admitted it's the sort of injury that puts things in perspective. "Right away," he said, "you think, 'I lost my eye and my hockey career is over and my life is going to be totally different with losing an eye.' But thank God it was quick we found out it wasn't that. You're thankful for it.

"It hit so hard and there was so much blood, I wasn't sure if it hit my eyeball. Someone was looking over me on the ice, I guess, because I don't know how it missed my eye."

Contact Helene St. James: hstjames@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @helenestjames.