McLean said the blade of Panthers center Olli Jokinen, whose skate struck Zednik when Jokinen lost his balance and his leg kicked back into the air, made a clean, easy-to-repair slice in Zednik's artery.

"I've seen other injuries where people are cut with skates in which the cut is very jagged, irregular and brutal to repair,'' Allen said Wednesday from his shop in Windsor, Ontario. "With our system, when cuts are made, they tend to be very clean and precise and go back together very easily.''

Dr. Sonya Noor, the vascular surgeon who needed less than an hour to repair the damage to Zednik's throat, said the next day it was as if Zednik "had been cut by a knife.''

"The artery was cut almost completely in half, but nothing else appeared to be affected by the skate blade,'' she said.

McLean was at first concerned about the extent of the damage, especially considering the rarity of blade injuries, even in the fast-paced frenzy of the NHL. Zednik lost nearly half of the blood in his body from a cut doctors described as about 112 inches wide and 11/2 inches deep.

But after watching video of the incident more than 20 times, McLean concluded that trauma was unavoidable.

"You're going to have a serious injury,'' McLean said. "The forces are just too great. (Jokinen) was skating very fast, the blade was coming up very fast, and the other (factor) was it was very close to the back of the skate, so it was more of a puncture than a slice.

"It came up hard and went in very deep. I'm not surprised by the depth of the wound at all.''

McLean said the wound might have been even cleaner had Zednik been struck earlier in the game instead of in the third period.

"When you finish (sharpening) a blade, it's beautiful and clean,'' he said. "But during a game it gets nicked up - it bangs against other skates, the edges become jagged, it gets more unpredictable.

"So in the third period of a game that skate has been exposed to a lot of incidents of running into skates, posts, sticks ... the edges are not as clean anymore. And jagged edges are more dangerous.''

Zednik also benefited from the construction of Jokinen's skate, McLean said. Jokinen's boot is built with a heel that does not curve upward, which made for less of a direct contact area with Zednik's throat. If it had been Zednik's skate hitting Jokinen, McLean said, "I fear the damage would have been much worse.''

Zednik was released from Buffalo General Hospital Friday, five days after the game, and he has been recuperating at his South Florida home. Zednik, 32, will miss the remainder of the season, but he felt well enough to attend a pro tennis tournament with his wife, Jessica, in Delray Beach on Saturday night. He will address the South Florida media at the BankAtlantic Center today for the first time since the incident.

Panthers Assistant General Manager Randy Sexton said he had heard about the Maximum Edge system, but he wasn't aware that McLean uses it until after Zednik's injury. It is used by more than 130 teams, including about half the NHL's 30 franchises, according to the company.

Sexton said he had been skeptical about the company's claims.

"I don't profess to be an expert, but speaking intuitively, how can something be sharp, be required to hold an edge and cut and not cut flesh?'' Sexton said. "What (McLean) told me was because the blade was so sharp, it delivered a clean cut, which made it easy to repair.''

Sexton said McLean told him he called 10 other NHL equipment managers to ask them if there's anything he could have done to prevent Zednik's injury. None had an answer.

Allen believes his product and McLean's diligence combined to make a horrific injury from being even worse.

"I know the way Robbie does skates,'' Allen said, "and I'd like to say that between his preparation and our product we reduced the severity of the injury. I can't say that definitively, but I really believe it's true.