Almost There: You can’t see the damage here — post-plastic surgery, Jerry Toppazzini of the Boston Bruins looked pretty good in early March of 1957. A month after suffering what doctors called a “complicated” facial injury in an encounter with Ted Lindsay’s stick, the right winger still wasn’t back on the ice. He hadn’t even left Detroit yet, in fact, the scene of the crime. While he waited for his doctor’s okay, he was skating on Red Wing ice at the Olympia and (above) at least pretending to work out. Six weeks he’d be out, minimum, said the papers, if he wasn’t finished for the season.

Here’s what happened: with the Bruins leading 1-0, three minutes to go in the game, Bruins and Wings were in one of your proverbial scrambles for the puck. Boston coach Milt Schmidt said Lindsay, 31 and well-known for cussedness, went in with malice aforethought. “There was no accident about that,” Schmidt said. “Lindsay jumped right at Topper with his stick.”

Toppazzini, 25, was the Bruins’ leading scorer at the time. He went down. Removed to a dressing room, he took on 16 stitches from a doctor trying to close cuts to his nose, lips, and starboard eyebrow. Later, at Detroit Osteopathic Hospital, Dr. Milton Kosley examined an x-ray and reported a broken nose and “complicated fractures of the middle third of the face” as well as “partial chipping of two front teeth.” Once the swelling went down, he’d operate.

Back at the rink, Lindsay got a high-sticking major from referee Red Storey. Protesting, he earned a 10-minute misconduct and the $25 automatic fine that went with it.

“The puck was loose,” was how Lindsay told it to reporters, “and Toppazzini and I both were going after it. I jumped for it and so did he. I wasn’t trying to clobber the guy — we were a goal behind with just a couple of minutes left to play.” Why would he want to take a penalty?

“Nobody feels any worse about it than I do,” Lindsay said. “We’re all in hockey to make a living, not to maim anyone.”

For his part, Toppazzini couldn’t summon up a grudge. “I’m sure Ted didn’t do it intentionally,” he said.

He was back playing by mid-March. No-one had expected much from the Bruins that year, but Toppazzini was one of the sparks that fired them into third place in the final regular-season standings. They kept going in the playoffs, all the way to the Finals, where they lost to Montreal.