The NHL’s Shocking Smile Secret: Why Star Players Choose Missing Teeth Over Fixes

Ever noticed a hockey player’s grin and spotted a telltale gap where a tooth once stood? That’s the kind of battle scar Patrick Brown wears every day—with a grin, no less. This guy has weathered 164 NHL games, and his missing tooth tells a story louder than any scoreboard ever could. It all began when he was just 18, getting clipped by a high stick during summer hockey, half of that tooth shattering on impact. But the saga didn’t stop there. Fast forward to 2022, while hustling for the Philadelphia Flyers, Brown found himself on the wrong end of a brutal elbow from Martin Fehervary—snapping what little remained of that stubborn tooth clean off. Now, off the ice, Brown hides the gap behind a prosthetic “flipper” for those polite occasions. But on the rink? He lets the void breathe, joining a brotherhood of players who see missing teeth less as a flaw and more as a badge of honor—a brutal testament to the fierce, unforgiving nature of hockey itself. Intrigued? There’s a lot going on behind those gaps—more than just dental drama. LEARN MORE

Patrick Brown is quick with a smile. As such, it does not take long to see that Brown has suffered one of the consequences of being a hockey player.

“I’m missing one tooth, obviously,” the 164-game NHL veteran says, flashing a gap up top. “It’s come out a bunch of times.”

Brown’s troubles started when he was 18 years old. He was playing summer hockey while wearing a half shield. One of his best friends high-sticked him in the mouth. Half of the tooth crumbled.

“But it was just the bottom half,” Brown says. “I got to the dentist. They fixed it. So that was good.”

It turned bad, by his recollection, in 2022. Brown, playing for the Philadelphia Flyers, was on the forecheck. Martin Fehervary was in his sights. As Brown closed on the forecheck, the Washington Capitals defenseman lifted his elbow into his face.

“His elbow pad literally goes into my mouth and caves — the same tooth that was already broken in — the whole thing in,” Brown says. “So then the whole thing almost came out. It was split at the bottom. They tried to put a top on it. But there wasn’t enough base left. So they just had to take it out.”

In more polite company, Brown inserts a prosthetic, commonly known as a flipper, so he can flash an acceptable smile.

“I’ll wear it to my country club,” Brown says with the accompanying grin. “Parent-teacher conferences. Kids’ birthday parties.”

But on the ice and in the room, Brown lets the air flow through the hole that Fehervary opened. Others do the same. 

It’s not just for the look.

Safety first

Brown has company when it comes to missing teeth. With a look to his right, he can see Riley Duran, his AHL linemate, laying claim to a similar gap on the top row. 

In 2024-25, during the Boston Bruins’ rookie tournament in Buffalo, Duran stretched out his stick and had a puck ride all the way up it and into his mouth. He needed stitches on site and a root canal upon returning to Boston.

“Teeth kind of suck,” says the Anaheim Ducks’ Troy Terry, whose bottom row juts in multiple directions following a handful of wayward high sticks. “Nerve endings. Eating. That type of thing.”

If there is any consolation to eating a puck, it’s that the aesthetic outcome comes with bragging rights. Players like Brent Burns and Miles Wood look like stereotypical hockey players because of how many teeth they are currently without.

Miles Wood shows off his smile in 2022, when he was with the Devils. (Bruce Bennett / Getty Images)

“It’s a badge of honor sometimes to have been through the fight out there and lost a tooth or chipped a tooth,” Bruins team dentist Dr. Edwin Riley says. “Just a different mentality.”

Brown required two procedures following his run-in with Fehervary. First, the little that was left of his tooth had to come out. Then he had a metal post put in to serve as the base of a future full-time replacement.

That, however, will wait until he retires. The risk is not worth the reward.

“If it happens again and you have the fake one in over the post and it breaks the post, the post can actually break the bone. That could be a major surgery,” Brown says. “You try not to get that. Guys will get little pieces of the teeth fixed. But if you’re getting a whole new one stuck up there, it can break the base if you get another injury to it.”

A player could roll the dice that the odds are low of having the same area smashed multiple times. But the severity of such an outcome goes hand in hand with the likelihood of teeth being exposed to injury.

“Accidents where people fall off bikes or people trip, fall and hit the ground, those are all similar kinds of injuries where you’re going to see lacerations to the lip and to the soft tissue around the teeth, fractured teeth, teeth that could get pushed,” Riley says. “It’s usually just that in hockey, the exposure to the potential for that is much higher.”

A dental bridge is a more permanent alternative to a flipper. But players may prefer to wait for this procedure until they retire because of the risk of a repeat strike. Not only that, a bridge also puts the neighbors of the original injured tooth at risk.

“Let’s say you lose one tooth,” says Dr. Dennis Fasbinder, clinical professor and director of the University of Michigan School of Dentistry’s Dental Faculty Associates. “The player decides, ‘I want a bridge. I don’t want to have an implant done.’ Well, we have to put a crown on the teeth on either side of that space. So it looks like the tooth is replaced. But now three teeth are connected. If they get hit there again, they might lose additional teeth now, not just the one they lost to begin with.”

Dentists prefer prevention over intervention. Wearing a mouth guard would reduce the likelihood of injury.

“Most trauma occurs not because the tooth itself gets hit. That is obviously one option,” Fasbinder says. “But a lot of times, it happens by hitting the chin and slamming the teeth together, so it’s a tooth-to-tooth contact. Any kind of custom mouth guard of a couple millimeters is going to protect those teeth from hitting each other. That cuts down a tremendous amount of trauma right there. It also shields the front of the teeth. So if you start out with a hockey stick or puck, it will diffuse the force on those teeth and protect them from being chipped or broken.”

But mouth guards are not mandatory in the NHL. Most times, when a player hits the ice, he’s playing with fire. 

Rapid response

Dentists like Riley attend their teams’ home games — they are responsible for visiting players as well — to be on hand when things go sideways. Care is usually not out of the ordinary. According to Fasbinder, dentists learn how to assess and treat such facial trauma (lacerations to the lips, cuts in the soft tissue around the teeth, fractures to the teeth) in pediatric dentistry, oral surgery and endodontics courses. The job starts with triage.

“Were the teeth fractured? Were the teeth moved out of position?” Riley asks. “If it’s something we can address immediately, whether it be a repositioned tooth, we have a dental kit and some equipment on site where we can try to splint or help reposition the tooth, or cover up the tooth if there’s an exposed nerve or pulp. And usually if there are soft-tissue lacerations, usually with the medical team sutures can be done and try to stabilize the patient that way.”

It can be a challenging process. The player is in discomfort. The injury has occurred during a shift. Adrenaline and heart rate are high. In some cases, the medical staff has to assess whether a concussion has occurred at the same time.

“You’re in the middle of an acute injury,” Riley says. “You’re battling the player maybe not really wanting to be there, wanting to get out right away.”

If a tooth comes out entirely, its prompt recovery makes saving it more likely. According to Fasbinder, emergency technicians sometimes carry bottles for displaced teeth containing a solution that mimics saliva’s slight acidity. Milk can also be used.

“It’s a very time-dependent success or failure mechanism,” Fasbinder says. “The longer the tooth is out of the mouth, the less success you’re going to have that the tooth is going to be able to be replanted and become a part of the dentition again.”

The best-case scenario, if you can call it that, is a fractured tooth. An on-site dentist’s priority is to determine that it is not loosened to the bone. If that is the case, Fasbinder says the dentist can treat the player’s pain with a local anesthetic at the base of the tooth. The player can then return to the game. 

The time Fehervary elbowed his tooth from his mouth, Brown didn’t recall the pain being severe. Perhaps it was because he knew his tooth was beyond saving.

“It was all crumbled up in my mouth,” Brown says. “So I just gave what I had to my trainer, Tommy (Alva). Didn’t miss a shift.”