Barron's courage after taking skate blade to face inspires Jets in Game 1

LAS VEGAS -- Nobody seemed to know how many stitches Morgan Barron needed after taking a skate blade to his face in Game 1 of the Western Conference First Round on Tuesday.

Not even the Winnipeg Jets forward could answer definitively.
"I'm not sure," Barron said after a 5-1 victory against the Vegas Golden Knights at T-Mobile Arena. Game 2 of the best-of-7 series is here Thursday (10 p.m. ET; TBS, CBC, SN, TVAS, ATTSN-RM).
Winnipeg forward Blake Wheeler thought it was 15. Coach Rick Bowness said 55. The Sportsnet broadcast reported 75.
Forward Adam Lowry didn't even venture a guess.
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"It looked like he got attacked by a shark, to be honest," Lowry said.
They all agreed Barron showed incredible toughness in coming back after the skate blade of Vegas goalie Laurent Brossoit went under his visor and near his eye during a goal-mouth scramble in the first period.
"That's Winnipeg Jet hockey -- we're all in -- and Morgan is a perfect example of that tonight," Bowness said. "Give him a lot of credit, that takes a lot of courage.
"That was a pretty serious cut, so give him a ton of credit, man, for coming back and playing. And that's an inspiration for our players as well. I think Morgan's presence coming back from that -- because they all realized how bad it was -- that it gave everyone a big boost."
The game was 0-0 when Barron was injured. While he was getting stitched up -- after texting his girlfriend and mom to let them know he was OK -- the Jets went up 2-0 on goals by Kyle Connor and Pierre-Luc Dubois 62 seconds apart to start the second period.

"I just had my eyes closed listening to the guys hooting and hollering whenever they scored," Barron said.
Barron didn't remain out for long, and Bowness was confident that he wouldn't.
"From what they told me, as soon as he's laying down and getting stitched up, he's saying 'I've got to get back. I've got to get back,'" Bowness said. "When they told me that he was getting dressed and he was coming back, I wasn't surprised."
While Barron was getting stitched up, the Winnipeg trainers were busy putting a full cage on his helmet so he could return.
"With the cage on it's pretty hard for anything to happen, " said Barron, who wore a full cage during a three-season run at Cornell University that ended in 2020. "You get hopped up on adrenaline. I was obviously really excited for my first playoff game and just kind of went from there."
Barron played 10:44 on Tuesday, interrupted by almost an hour getting stitched up. He had three shots, five hits and a takeaway. He also played 1:31 on a penalty-killing unit that killed each of the three power-play opportunities Vegas received.
"He's about as tough as they come," Connor said. "That's about all I can say about that one."