NHL News: Noel Acciari’s Gruesome Sounding Injury Revealed

We've heard of players who "play their *ss off"... But for Pittsburgh Penguins forward Noel Acciari, this was very literally the case, as revealed in a report by Andrew Destin in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

The fourth-line center told the Post-Gazette he partially tore the glute muscle off his right hip bone.

Yikes. Hope you were sitting down when you read that. Acciari probably wasn't. 

As the 32-year-old pointed out, "Just fell on it weird." That's an understatement. 

The injury occurred back on March 24th in a game against the Colorado Avalanche. After the diagnosis, Acciari headed to LTIR, where he stayed for the... tail end of the season. 

The good news is that he was able to avoid surgery, going the rest and rehab route, and avoiding a multiple-month recovery process. As it was, he was actually able to get back on skates in the past couple of weeks and even joined his teammates for some workouts.

"I was fortunate to escape (surgery) and give it some time to heal up,” Acciari said. “But [I’ll] be ready to go next year."

Acciari was signed as a free agent to a 3-year, $6 million deal by the Penguins last summer by the same GM that traded for him in the 2022-23 season in Toronto, Kyle Dubas. 

He played 55 games in the first year of his contract with Pittsburgh, registering four goals and seven points in about 13 minutes of ice time per night.  

Photo: Stephen R. Sylvanie-USA TODAY Sports