BUFFALO – At the 14:06 mark of the second period in the Sabres’ 2-1 loss Wednesday, the Winnipeg Jets’ Adam Lowry hit winger Patrick Kaleta face-first into the boards, earning a five-minute major and a game misconduct.
As a bloodied Kaleta stayed on his knees behind the net, Sabres defenseman Andrej Meszaros, the closest player to Lowry, watched for a moment. Eventually, he skated over a cross-checked him meekly.
Update: Lowry has been suspended one game by the NHL for the hit.
Seconds later, Sabres winger Chris Stewart jumped Lowry, igniting a short scrum.
“It was what it was, obviously, if I had to do it over, I probably would’ve jumped him more, probably would get two minutes or something, but I decided to not go that much harder on him,” Meszaros said inside the First Niagara Center. “But maybe I should’ve.”
Why did Meszaros freeze?
“I was looking at the referee,” he said. “I wanted to make sure if there’s a power play or not. I kind of went there and kind of cross-checked him, didn’t want to jump in that hard, so I knew we were going to have a power play. We were down.”
He added: “I wasn’t sure what was going to be the call, five or two.”
Sabres coach Ted Nolan said “there’s going to be times for payback.”
“Maybe that’s not the correct time to do it,” he said.
He added: “Hopefully, somebody else will take care of it for us.”
Kaleta returned to the game.
Meszaros endured a brutal game, making several gaffes.
He didn’t respond because he’s a euro (sissy) and he didn’t want to get his skirt wrinkled. The sooner he and Benoit are off this team, the better. They’re simply placeholders for Pysyk, McCabe, and Ruhwedel.
Meszaros is the worst player on this team. I don’t care if your waiting to see if a penalty is called you should have immediately address(fight) this issue. Get rid of this guy. The only reason I can see the sabres keeping him, is so they can end up dead last in the standings.