VIDEO: Hit of the year? AHL player fully flipped with open-ice hit

The AHL might have seen the hit of the year in hockey when Darren Archibald of Utica completely flipped Lake Erie's Karl Stollery with an open-ice shot.

By Brian Stubits

Nov 27, 2013 at 9:52 am ET • 1 min read

It seems any time we talk about open-ice hits any more, they are almost always accompanied with a conversation about head shots and other dangerous plays. It's hardly just about a big, great and clean hit.

Well thanks to Canucks prospect Darren Archibald's booming hit in the AHL for the Utica Comets, we can talk just about a booming hit again.

With Utica playing the Lake Erie Monsters, affiliate of the Avalanche, Archibald lined up Karl Stollery, who was looking to start a defensive zone breakout and up the ice. The following was the result; a full roll.

!!!!!!

That's laying the proverbial wood right there, goodness. The impact flips Stollery more than half the way around and he completes the full 360 when he hits the ice. That's a serious collision.

There are two other things to note here, though: Stollery actually was able to get the puck up the ice, probably more from inertia than him actually passing it but still, it went up the ice to a teammate. Secondly, notice when Stollery is upside down, his skates appear to strike Archibald near the face. Thankfully he was wearing a visor because a good hit was close to having a disastrous result, and not for the guy who was actually hit.

Lake Erie ended up winning the game 3-2 on Tuesday night. Archibald, an undrafted free agent who signed with the Canucks, has two goals and two assists in nine games and one massive hit.

S/t to Deadspin