The picture was vividly graphic. Gross even. But it was typical Ryan Smyth.
Just seconds after he turned to come back and help his defense move the puck out of trouble late in the second period, the Edmonton Oilers winger caught an attempted clearing pass from teammate Chris Pronger right in the mouth.
Smyth reached down to the ice for something and then quickly headed for the locker room and an impromptu visit with the dentist after he lost three teeth and had split both of his lips.
But he returned, just like we expect from a real life, honest-to-goodness, self-motivated hockey player. Like Ryan Smyth. Came back in time to miss just three shifts and play the same in-your-face aggressive game he always plays. And, on this night, he was there to win a fight for the puck behind the San Jose Sharks net and send it in front to linemate Shawn Horcoff for the winning goal to end a three-overtime decision for the Oilers in Game 3.
Larry Wigge has covered the NHL since 1969. The longtime NHL columnist for The Sporting News, Wigge is now an NHL.com columnist and a frequent contributor to the website.
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"For him to pick through the blood to pick up his teeth and come back is just amazing," Oilers goaltender Dwayne Roloson said. "But that's Ryan. He battles through adversity all the time. How can the rest of his teammates not be motivated by a player like that?"
Smyth didn't find the three teeth in the red ice, one of the linesmen did. The teeth were carefully put in a towel while Ryan went to the locker room to have his mouth stitched up. Unfortunately, the teeth couldn't be saved. But none of the formalities concerned this driven hockey player, who followed up his Game 3 heroics by contributing two assists in the Oilers' rally from a 2-0 deficit a couple nights later and then he added two goals and two assists in a third-straight victory for Edmonton May 14.
Big games call for big-time players ... like Ryan Smyth.
Skill ... determination ... passion ... grit ... playing on the edge. Some players are just born with the mindset to play on the edge, to do whatever it takes to win.
"I never expected him to not come back," said Horcoff. "You can't keep him out of practice, let alone a Stanley Cup Playoff game."
While we love to watch the twirls and spins of hockey's greatest and most-skilled players, there's an affinity in all of us for the guy who leaves everything out there on the ice after the game is over -- the guy who loves the risk and reward of playing on the edge of grit and greatness when the game is on the line. Even though Smyth is just 6-foot-1, 190 pounds, he plays like a 6-4, 225-pound power forward, leaving caution to the wind. He won't give up on any potential scoring opportunity.
"He's a throwback to the old Oilers, when a Glenn Anderson or Mark Messier or Esa Tikkanen would drive hard to the net with speed every time they were on the ice," Oilers coach Craig MacTavish said. "With Smytty, you know you're going to get a competitive shift ... every time. In a tight, competitive game I could give him up to 25 minutes of ice time and he'd come to me and say, 'Give me 30.'
"Ryan is at a point in his career where he no longer has to get a goal or a point to help his team win. Just being on the ice, he can be a leader, a presence."
Ryan Smyth is one of those players who prove that intangibles and competing count just as much as skating, shooting and passing. Especially in the playoffs, when a player like Smyth gets this look of focus ... fearlessness ... in his eyes.
Even 48 hours and after a second dental procedure, Smyth was still mumbling like Marlon Brando did in The Godfather.
"Stacey (Ryan's wife) wanted to get a family photo a short time ago and I came up with an excuse to put it off," Smyth laughed. "(Losing the teeth) is just a part of the game. Actually, Horc told me it didn't make me look any uglier than I did before."
Smyth smiled at the thought and then continued.
"When I look into a mirror, I see a guy who just loves to pay the price it takes to win," he said. "I'm not out to win a modeling job."
Edmonton head coach Craig MacTavish on Smyth:
"Ryan is at a point in his career where he no longer has to get a goal or a point to help his team win. Just being on the ice, he can be a leader, a presence."
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Ryan Smyth is the kind of player every team wants -- a warrior, who plays to win no matter who he is playing against or whether it is the first week of the season, or the last.
Don't let him fool you. Ryan knows the seriousness of hockey and injuries. In 1996, his brother Kevin lost the sight in his right eye after being hit by a puck in the face during a minor-league game.
Obviously, blood and guts, paying the price to win, runs in the family.
"The incident epitomizes our team," left winger Ethan Moreau said. "We want this bad, and Ryan's a guy we look to and follow when it comes to that."
Ryan Smyth and his brother were rink rats in Banff, the Alberta vacation spot not far from Edmonton, where the Oilers were kings long before the team made Ryan its first-round pick, sixth overall, in the 1994 draft.
There's even a story of how Smyth nearly injured Oilers star winger Glenn Anderson when the team went to Banff for a golf outing and Ryan brushed into Anderson with a golf cart.
Hockey and the competition and all the physical things that go along with the game are pure fun for Smyth.
"You're right," he said, a twinkle in his eyes. "I'm always thinking about hockey, hockey, hockey. But that got me into trouble when I was about 7 and my mom sat me down and told me that my teachers were worried that I wasn't thinking enough about schoolwork. I told her, 'Mom, I'm going to be a hockey player. I don't need to read.' "
His worried mom told Ryan he would need to be able to read a contract, if he achieved his dream and made it to the NHL.
"I told her, 'I'll hire a lawyer to do that," Smyth remembered, with a mischievous smile on his face. Smyth obviously listened to his mom and buckled down in the classroom, but he never wavered from his dream of playing in the NHL.
Or in playing the game with the kind of passion and fearlessness that continues to make for hockey lore around the Edmonton area even time Ryan Smyth shows the hockey world how much he hates to lose.
