A pair of Buffalo Sabers left the game with injuries

The Buffalo Sabers opened Veterans Day in the NHL with an afternoon matinee against the Montreal Canadiens. The two Atlantic Division rivals are fighting for position within the division as they are both outside of the playoffs.

For the Sabers, this game was a chance to push their record above .500 for the first time this season and build on their recent wins. Instead, they got into a back-and-forth with the Canadiens. Even worse, the team lost two experienced players due to injuries.

Forward Tage Thompson, the team's top centerman, played only one shift in the second period. He did not return after a minute of ice time and was out for the rest of the game.

Later in the same period, defenseman Mattias Samuelsson walked off the runway with an apparent lower-body injury. Samuelsson, who had been a healthy player for the last three games, had just returned to the lineup for this game against the Canadiens.

As the third period began, the Sabres' PR team released an update regarding the veteran pair.

If Thompson were to miss an extended period of time, it could hurt the Sabres' hopes of moving up in the division standings. Thompson is the engine of Buffalo's offense and is by far the team's best scorer. In 15 games this season, he has 10 goals and 17 points.

Since being traded to the Sabers on a waiver claim in 2018, Thompson has emerged as one of the premier power forwards in the NHL. In the 2022–2023 season, he scored 94 points with 47 goals and 47 assists, setting a career high. He scored 142 goals in 387 career games, 135 of which came during his time in Buffalo.

Samuelsson has been with the organization since they selected him in the second round of the 2018 NHL Draft. The 24-year-old is known as a sturdy stay-at-home defenseman and has played with the Sabers for four seasons since his debut. In the fall of 2022, he signed a seven-year contract extension that gave him an average annual value of $4.285 million. He has played in 12 games this season, scoring one goal and averaging about 16 minutes of ice time.

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