Helene St. James | Detroit Free Press

Helene St. James, Detroit Free Press

BUFFALO, N.Y. _ Detroit Red Wings forward Brendan Perlini left KeyBank Center with a swollen face and a measure of gratitude.

He endured a scary incident in the first period of Tuesday’s 3-2 loss to the Buffalo Sabres when he was hit in the face by a skate. There was damage — he sported a bruised right orbital bone and stitches around his nose — but his eyes escaped damage.

Perlini was nice enough to pose for a picture as he left the arena. He said he didn’t feel well enough for an interview, but expressed relief the injury wasn’t worse.

His overall well-being was a relief to his teammates.

Jeffrey T. Barnes, AP

“It looked terrible,” Anthony Mantha said. “We kind of saw it coming, like slow motion on the ice. It's scary.”

Perlini had just played the puck when Buffalo Sabres defender Henri Jokiharju arrived on the scene. As Jokiharju fell forward, he accidentally caught Perlini in the face with a skate.

Brendan Perlini takes a skate to the face #Sabres50 #LGRW pic.twitter.com/753SYY0zFc — Buffalo Hockey moments (@SabresPlays) February 12, 2020

“I just talked to Brendan,” coach Jeff Blashill said after the game. “Brendan is doing good. It cut him underneath the eye and around the nose. It was a large laceration. I think he was thankful, I was thankful. We were all scared when we first saw it happen that it had gone near his eye. That’s the thing you worry the most about.

“It was just an unfortunate situation where the skate came up and he was falling and it caught him in the face. Super scary. At that point both teams just worry about his well-being. Thankfully he is going to be all right.”

Blashill said Perlini would travel with the team to New Jersey, where they play Thursday. He did not have information yet on whether Perlini will miss any games. He just scored his first goal of the season in Sunday’s 3-1 victory over the Boston Bruins.

“He’s just starting to hit his stride with us,” Dylan Larkin said. “To see that, from the bench, we got a pretty good look. It’s a scary sight any time a guy gets a skate like that up high.

“He’s a tough guy. We’re happy he’s all right.”