The Buffalo Sabres earned their third straight win with a 4-3 victory over the New Jersey Devils on Sunday, but the main story after the game wasn’t their success. It was the head hit from New Jersey’s Stefan Noesen on Tage Thompson, which led to a major penalty and game misconduct for Noesen. Thompson, the Sabres’ leading scorer, was knocked out of the game and didn’t return.
Thompson, who was named the NHL’s Second Star of the Week on Monday, was reaching for the puck in the New Jersey zone when Noesen hit him. The Devils player received a five-minute match penalty, but the NHL’s Department of Player Safety decided not to hold a hearing for any further discipline.
The real controversy after the game centered on the Sabres’ lack of response to the hit on their star player. Veteran Jason Zucker said he didn’t see Noesen’s hit but did mention that others witnessed it and didn’t take action.
“I know I had a couple guys that wanted to go after (Noesen) right away, and where we were at in the game, there was going to be a time we were going to be able to even the score,” Sabres head coach Lindy Ruff said after the game.
“Why isn’t there a call after (Zucker) gets cross-checked after he scores a goal? In the game where there were all kinds of strange calls, why isn’t there a call on that play?”
The chance to retaliate against Noesen never came, which raised questions about the team’s mentality. While it’s understandable that players may hesitate when they’re unsure what happened, it was clear after the hit, and still, there was no reaction to the injury of their best player.
If Buffalo was in the playoff race, it might make sense to be cautious, but with the Sabres 11 points out of a wild-card spot in the Eastern Conference, their lack of response felt similar to when Milan Lucic hit Ryan Miller in 2011.
Ruff confirmed that Thompson was medically cleared after the game, but since the Sabres didn’t practice on Monday, there would be no update on his status for their next game against Columbus until the morning skate on Tuesday.
