During the Sabres’ loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning on Monday night, Rasmus Dahlin took an elbow to the head. It looked to be unintentional, but Erik Cernak drilled Dahlin right in the face, yet, there was no penalty called.
The Sabres were in the offensive zone on the power play when it happened, and Dahlin quickly went down to the ice as play continued. Cernak was not penalized for this:
Cernak elbows Dahlin in the face. pic.twitter.com/kfTL2XbVan
— Ben Mathewson (@Ben_Mathewson) November 26, 2019
I’m not sure what the referees were looking at, but this seemed to be an extremely obvious call. Forget about the non-penalty call, though, as the worse news is that Dahlin now has a concussion.
Krueger: "So Rasmus Dahlin has a concussion. Very disappointing and we'll let the league deal with the judgment of what happened. But again, right now we're just worried about Rasmus and getting him healthy and hoping that it's not a long-term injury."
— Joe Yerdon (@JoeYerdon) November 26, 2019
Cernak will likely at least have a hearing with NHL’s Player Safety.
Zach Bogosian when asked about the hit on Dahlin: "I’m not a ref, man. There’s blood on the ice. I didn’t really see it, but it’s tough. Especially when one of your really good young defensemen goes down. That’s all I’ll say."
— Lance Lysowski (@LLysowski) November 26, 2019