Blackhawks’ Louis Crevier lucky to avoid injury after face sliced by skate

PHILADEPHIA — Louis Crevier hustled to the locker room so quickly Thursday after a skate sliced his face, Connor Bedard didn’t even realize it had happened.

Nor did the referees spot Crevier’s blood splattered on the ice behind the Blackhawks’ net, which was finally scraped off by the Xfinity Mobile Arena ice crew during the next commercial break.

Crevier and the Hawks ended up dodging a bullet, though, because the towering defenseman turned out to be OK.

“He got a cut that at first he thought — we all thought — might’ve been worse,” coach Jeff Blashill said. “Thankfully, he’s going to be just fine.”

It happened in the third period when Flyers defenseman Nick Seeler (actually a former Hawk himself) stumbled over Spencer Knight’s stick while driving the net, causing the heel of his right skate to kick back up into Crevier.

“You never want to have something like that happen to someone,” Bedard said. “But he’s doing good.”

Big step

It’s remarkable how much Crevier has solidified his long-term spot in the Hawks’ defensive rotation this season, which he entered as a guy who looked likely to be a healthy scratch more often than not.

He nears the end of it as a guy averaging nearly 17 minutes per game over 68 appearances. He has recorded five goals, 13 assists, 76 blocked shots and 111 hits (most among active Hawks) and counting.

“I think I’ve taken a pretty big step this year, and I’m proud of that,” Crevier said Tuesday.

With Matt Grzelcyk injured, Crevier — who will turn 25 in May — is actually the oldest of the six Hawks defensemen on this road trip.

“We all know each other pretty well [dating back to] Rockford, so it doesn’t feel like it’s that crazy to us,” he added. “I don’t think we go out there [and think], ‘Oh, we’re so young.’ It’s pretty much the same as what we’ve done before.”

Extra energy

Crevier remembers how Oliver Moore and Sam Rinzel’s arrivals late last season injected excitement into the Hawks, propelling their solid closing run. Anton Frondell and Sacha Boisvert’s arrivals are having similar effects now.

“It brings a little bit of life in a long season,” Crevier said. “As you get closer to the end of the year, it’s nice to have some energy.”

Crevier now has another French Canadian on the team in Boisvert, who was actually drafted by the same QMJHL club Crevier played for (Chicoutimi) even though he didn’t end up playing in that junior league.

They instead met for the first time at a pro-am tournament last summer in Quebec City, Crevier’s hometown.

Donato’s challenge

The Hawks eventually need one of their young forwards to step up as a defensive center they can lean on, but veteran Ryan Donato is embracing that role for now.

Donato’s results haven’t been great so far, and he’s not sugarcoating the fact it has been a challenge for him — but he obviously hopes to “get really good at” it.

“You’ve always got to be in the defensive side of things,” Donato said Thursday. “It’s a little bit different than wing, right? The whole system is different from the center perspective. It’s a lot more skating in the ‘D’-zone. Wingers are a lot more positionally in their own spots, whereas the center has a little bit more ability to dictate where he’s going to be in the zone.”

“You might [encounter] something new every single game that’s a little bit different play where you’re like, ‘OK, what would I do here now as a centerman?’”