Tim Thomas faced his former team for the first time on Tuesday night, and it could not have gone worse for the Florida Panthers goalie. The Boston Bruins defeated Thomas and company 6-2 on their home ice. Toward the end of the game, frustration appeared to boil over for the two-time Vezna Trophy winner.
With just seconds remaining in the game, Bruins forward Carl Soderberg was still playing hard and crashed the net following a shot. His stick wound up near the head and shoulder area of Thomas, and Thomas responded by cranking Soderberg in the head with his stick.
“No one was really running into me until the end there,” Thomas said after the game, via Puck Daddy. “Soderberg, the play before, [gave me] a pretty hard jab. It’s 6-2, so I took a little exception to that.”
Soderberg could have been more careful with his stick and more mindful of the score, but it didn’t appear that he was trying to hurt Thomas or hit him in the head. Thomas, on the other hand, clearly knew what he was doing.
“I was just going for the rebound,” Soderberg said. “We can’t stop playing.”
Harvey Fialkov of the Sun Sentinel believes that Thomas could face a suspension for the high stick. You can certainly understand why he was frustrated. All players want to perform will against their former teams, and Thomas couldn’t have been worse. Still, I’d classify that as a cheap shot.
