GREENBURGH, N.Y. -- Sorry Evander Holyfield, you've been topped. Having your fight called off moments after Mike Tyson bit off a piece of your ear? Kid stuff. It pales compared with what Rangers defenseman Kevin Klein pulled off Monday against the Pittsburgh Penguins after an accidental high stick from Pittsburgh's Zach Sill late in the first period left Klein with blood streaming down the side of his face. Turns out a 3-inch section of the top rim of Klein's left ear was sliced and peeled away, attached only by a narrow piece of flesh in the back.
Klein got up slowly and removed his helmet. He skated off. Then, for a hockey player, what he did next was "almost normal," Rangers captain Ryan McDonagh says.
After a little embroidery in the locker room to mend what had been sheared off -- "The ear is a little sensitive," Klein allowed Wednesday with a small smile -- he was back by the second period and scored an overtime goal against the division-leading Penguins on a slap shot from just inside the blue line. Then he threw back his head and cut loose a primal scream toward the ceiling just before the rest of the team mobbed him and -- oh no, oh wait ... ohhhh boy -- started slapping and hitting Klein on the head as they celebrated salvaging a point after blowing a two-goal lead.
"I could hear him yelling something like, 'Not the ear! Not the ear!'" Rangers winger Jesper Fast said with a smile.
"For some reason, Carl Hagelin thought it was funny to go right for the ear and keep poking it," Klein laughed.
Like The Ear scored the goal, you mean? "I guess," Klein nodded.
Not long afterward, a new hash tag had sprung up on Twitter: Vincent Van Gogh, meet Kevin #VanGoal.
"That was probably the funniest one," Klein laughed.
By practice Wednesday morning, Klein's life in the 36 hours since the game has been a whirlwind of text messages and phone calls, media interviews and expressions of wonderment, as well as a trip to a plastic surgeon Tuesday to have the work on his ear tidied up just a bit.
Klein already has six goals this year, a career high for him, as well as tops in the league right now among defensemen. More impressively, three of his goals have been game-winners. He's in his first full season with the Rangers, who traded Michael Del Zotto to Nashville last season to get him. Rangers All-Star goaltender Henrik Lundqvist says Klein has such a good, heavy slap shot, he dislikes facing it in practice. ("Hank said that? Did he really?" Klein asked.)
But all anyone wants to talk more about are things like the photo Klein tweeted out Tuesday showing a serpentine row of 18 stitches snaking around the top of his ear. And while it's true the picture is not for the squeamish, to his fellow hockey players and Klein himself, it's not extreme at all -- it's almost beautiful, kinda like the rainbow of colors you often see in a really good two-day-old shiner.
"Say what you want about hockey players, but they're tough SOBs," Rangers coach Alain Vigneault said.
"We all saw him bleeding as he went off and thought he might need a few stitches, but we didn't realize 'til later he had a pretty big chunk taken out of his ear," McDonagh added Wednesday.
Did Klein himself have any trepidation the first time he took a look in the mirror?
"Nah, I don't care. I'm married with two kids," he said with a smile.
Then, in a more serious tone, Klein added: "We just needed to win the game. I was in a hurry to get back as fast as I could. The ear is a sensitive spot. It was throbbing. But it didn't hurt any more than getting stitches in your chin, lip, eyes.
"As a defenseman, you just get used to getting hit in the face."
By now, none of this should shock anyone who follows hockey even casually, should it?
Hockey has always celebrated its tough guys like no other sport. If you know the lore of the game at all, it's no surprise the bio of, say, rugged Eddie Shore, the legendary Boston defenseman of the 1930s, details how he ended his career with a total of 9,787 stitches -- or that someone supposedly made the effort to keep an actual count.
Later, goalie Gerry Cheevers, another Bruins Hall of Famer who spent most of his career from 1965-80 with the club, used to add "stitches" to his mask with a black felt tip marker every time the puck struck him in the face (what is it with Boston guys?). Before long, Cheevers had created this gruesome visage of what could have been had he played in the era of no masks.
There is website called Hockey-Reference.com that includes on its "list of frivolties" the up-to-the-minute details of every active NHL player who is sidelined by an injury. There also used to be a reference book published called The Hockey Register, an annual compilation of NHL players' career stats. Below each man's name, there was also a boldface paragraph recounting their calamitous injuries or noteworthy fights:
"DEAN CHYNOWETH (October 27, 1988) -- Left eye injured by Rick Tocchet vs. Philadelphia and missed nearly two months."
"BRUCE DRIVER (December 8, 1988) -- Broke right leg in three places when checked by Lou Franceschetti vs. Washington and had surgery to implant a plate and 10 screws."
The Register's grisly cataloguing often went into ghoulish detail. Under Guy Lafleur's name it read: "(March 24, 1981) -- Fell asleep at the wheel of his car, hit a fence and a metal sign post, sliced off the top part of his right ear after the fence post went through his windshield."
But there was some accidental humor, too. Consider Larry Robinson's entry:
"(January 1, 1987) -- Broken nose.
(November 9, 1988) -- Sinus problem."
Given all that historical context, it's no wonder the 29-year-old Klein insists what he did was no big deal. Or that he feels a little uncomfortable being singled out.
To hear him tell it, the most distressing moment he's had since he got clipped by Sill's stick was how his 2-year-old son, Oliver, reacted after the game.
"He just kept staring at my ear and saying, 'Ouchy, Daddy? Do you have an ouchy?'" Klein laughed "He wouldn't even let me kiss him."
He's a hockey player's kid.
He'll learn.
