In hockey sticks fly. Fists fly. Players eat those sticks and fists to their relatively unprotected faces all the time. Against the Winnipeg Jets, New York Islanders forward Mathew Barzal took at least two sticks to the face.
Infractions that furiously went uncalled. At that point, the Islanders were the second-best team on the ice and were looking for anything to get them going. A power play could have done that. (Eventually, a power-play would get them going.)
But all the Islanders, and specifically Mathew Barzal had to show for those sticks to the face were two cuts to his upper lip and a swollen lip.