from Bryan Burns of TampaBayLightning.com,

Two nights ago in Detroit, Girardi went down to a knee like he's done tens of thousands of times over his NHL career to block a shot, except this time the heavy one-timer off the stick of Red Wings forward Martin Frk sailed high, catching Girardi around the back of the head and sending him face first to the ice, stunning the Little Caesars Arena crowd into an eerie silence and leaving Lightning nation praying for the best.

"(The puck) bounces pretty far. It goes back to (Frk) a little bit," Girardi joked with reporters in the locker room following Tampa Bay's morning skate on Tuesday, a morning skate Girardi amazingly attended and participated in, as if the scariest moment of his career didn't just happen two nights earlier. "I don't really want to watch it anymore. It's kind of too close for comfort."...

"That's the first one that's hit me over the shoulders," Girardi said. "It was definitely a very scary moment. Pretty lucky to be able to come on the ice two days later and feel pretty good. Just very fortunate that it hit me in the spot where it did. Neck's a little sore, but considering what happened, pretty lucky."

more