SUNRISE, Fla. -- Florida Panthers right wing Richard Zednik said he was "lucky to be here" as he spoke to the South Florida media for the first time since his near-fatal bloody incident on the ice earlier this month.

Zednik was cut in the neck during a game Feb. 10 at Buffalo when teammate Olli Jokinen was upended and his skate swung upward.

"It's nice to see Richard back and looking good," said Panthers coach Jacques Martin. Martin said that Zednik would be out for the rest of this season, but he's optimistic he'll regain his strength and will be able to compete in three months.

"Hockey is just a game; life is more important," said Martin.

Zednik recounted the moments just after his carotid artery was sliced.

"I remember exactly what happened and I knew exactly what I had to do. I knew it was pretty bad. I saw the blood. I said, 'This is it. I have to get up and soon as possible get to the bench,' " he said.

Doctors said Zednik's artery was sliced, but not completely severed, and the blade stopped short of his jugular vein.

"They prepared my wife that I could have brain damage," he said. "But I was talking, moving my fingers, everything."

Zednik never lost consciousness. He actually complained that Sabres' orthopedic surgeon Dr. Les Bisson was applying too much pressure to his neck in an effort to stop the bleeding.

"I was cut before on my face and I didn't feel it. This time it was like a stab. I felt like somebody stabbed me. It wasn't the pain, it was more like 'What's going to happen?' and I got weaker as I was sitting on the bench."

The hockey player credited doctors at Buffalo General for saving his life.

"It's hard to say what would have happened under other circumstances, but clearly, the care he got initially by the staff at the arena, I think, saved his life," said Robert McCormack, the hospital's clinical chief of emergency medicine.

"The doctors took great care of me," said Zednik.

A 12-year veteran, Zednik had 15 goals and 11 assists in 54 games this season, his first with the Panthers. He didn't manage a single point over 16 games between Dec. 28 and Feb. 1, but he had six goals and three assists in the four games that preceded the Buffalo game.