Mention the words “severed Achilles” to any hockey player and he becomes squeamish.“Yeah, just the thought of it makes me sick,” said a wincing Edmonton Oilers goalie Devan Dubnyk.

Hearing about the skate blade of Pittsburgh Penguins winger Matt Cooke slice through the tendon of Ottawa Senators defenceman Erik Karlsson last Wednesday night was gruesome stuff for the entire hockey community.

“You could filet a salmon with a skate blade, it’s so sharp,” said Edmonton Oil Kings associate coach Steve Hamilton, a former college defenceman at Northern Michigan.

Karlsson is done for the season, with 70 per cent of his tendon severed. People say he’ll recover, but we won’t see him until the 2013-14 season.

Teemu Selanne didn’t get any slower when his tendon was 80 per cent sliced in 1994, his sophomore NHL season with the Winnipeg Jets. Journeyman Anaheim Ducks defenceman Don McSween accidentally cut Selanne when he was 23 years old. He turns 43 in July.

Outside of getting a skate blade to the throat, getting a deep tendon cut is still the most dangerous injury. Foremer Buffalo Sabres goalie Clint Malarchuk and former Florida Panthers forward Richard Zednik both survived after getting their carotid arteries severed by skate blades.

“When I was coaching, players would tape the top of the tendon guard, usually white tape, and compress it against the back of the leg,” former NHL coach Scotty Bowman said. “That’s when they had tackaberry skates that were pretty flexible. Now, the skates are more rigid, but the players want to flex their legs more.

“Does anybody in Edmonton tape their skates like that?”

Not that I’ve seen.

Karlsson could have been wearing those black and white Bauer Kevlar socks that go all the way up the back of the leg and are resistant to cutting. But he wasn’t.

Some NHLers are or have worn them, including current Oilers centre Chris VandeVelde, who also uses the Kevlar sleeve under the gloves and up the forearm, and Colten Teubert of the American Hockey League’s Oklahoma City Barons. But there’s not an abundance of players doing so, even though it’s hardly as intrusive as getting used to a visor.

New Jersey Devils centre Travis Zajac, who tore his Achilles in training in 2011, said Karlsson’s biggest problem might be the long rehabilitation.

“You’re in a cast for a couple of weeks, then you get into a boot with heel wedges. Each couple of weeks you take one ou, so you get your foot back to flat eventually. It’s pretty much teaching your ankle how to move again because it’s been locked into position for so long. Lots of stretching,” Zajac told New Jersey reporters.

Zajac admitted he shuddered when he saw the Cooke-Karlsson incident on television.

“I looked down at my left foot just to make sure it was still there,” said Zajac.

Edmonton Oilers winger Jordan Eberle, who has thought of trying the Kevlar socks, watched the video of the Karlsson incident several times.

“That is your worst fear (severed Achilles). That and the cut in the throat. You don’t think about it though because it’ll just make you scared,” he said.

“If you have the Kevlar on instead of a severed tendon, you get stitches. It’s like a bulletproof vest. It might still hurt and leave a mark, but not as a deep a mark,” said Detroit Red Wings forward Dan Cleary.

Eberle was angry that Cooke was criticized after the incident.

“Of course, it’s Matt Cooke, so … This was an accident. Totally an accident.”

Cleary wasn’t so sure.

“It was reckless,” he said.

Bowman said hockey players aren’t always that concerned about their safety. It’s more about comfort.

“When I was coaching in Montreal, Yvan Cournoyer was slowing down. He was toward the end of his career. The trainer came to me a third of the way through the season and he said, ‘You have to talk to Cournoyer, he’s not wearing a jock anymore. He thinks it’s slowing him down with his skating,’ ’’ said Bowman. “I called Yvan in and said, ‘what are you doing?’ He said, ‘ahh, I just can’t stride.’ I said ‘c’mon.’ ’’

“I see Patrick Kane isn’t wearing his mouthguard anymore. You used to see him chewing on it (during stoppages in play). But he went overseas (during the lockout) and now he doesn’t have it. The announcer the other night on TV said Patrick found it distracting.

“Haven’t they proven that wearing a mouthguard in a collision can help (lessen the jarring of the head)?” said Bowman.

Nobody watches more games on TV or at the rinks than Bowman, an adviser to his son Stan, general manager of the Blackhawks. He’s a big Karlsson fan.

“He’s the best I’ve seen for awhile. He can turn on a dime and take off. It’s a lot of the stuff Bobby Orr used to do. This is the closest guy … I mean, Paul Coffey could really fly, but this Karlsson is a special player,” Bowman said.

“He’s such a great skater. He just turns it up and goes. He could easily play forward,” Bowman said. “His passing is stick to stick, and he puts so many pucks at the net with that wrist-shot. He’s just smart. You can play in the lower leagues and you don’t have to be that way but when you get to the NHL, that’s a skill that not a lot of guys have. It’s a sixth sense.”

Bad move, Tommy

No coach likes to scratch a name player, but some are bolder than others, like the lovable Tommy McVie, who sat superstar Bobby Hull one night in Winnipeg.Sitting veteran Oilers winger Ryan Smyth here is one thing, but the legendary Hull was a whole different story.

“Now that takes balls,” said the current Boston Bruins scout who coached the Jets in the World Hockey Association and the NHL.

“Bobby came running into the rink late after the warmup. What was I gonna do? Tell some kid who was excited to be playing Montreal, ‘sorry, you can’t play now.’ Fergy (then general manager John Ferguson, McVie’s old pal) kicked in the door. He yelled at me, ‘you know Bobby’s a part-owner of this team?’ ’’ said McVie, who held firm.

Hull didn’t play, left the team and was traded to Hartford shortly thereafter. He told a CBC reporter after that incident that, “it might be time to retire when you don’t know what time the games are.”

As for McVie, he was fired that first NHL season as the Jets went 30 games without a win. He arrived at the press conference to announce his dismissal and stood at the front of the room and said: “Tough to say you’re the best coach in the game when you can’t win a game.”

jmatheson@edmontonjournal.com