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Blues coach isn’t satisfied with team’s ‘response’ to Sobotka hit

hitchcockgetty

St. Louis Blues head coach Ken Hitchcock and forward Chris Stewart agree that the Adam Erne hit that injured Vladimir Sobotka was over the line - Stewart called it a “straight shot to the head” - but don’t see eye-to-eye on how the Blues reacted.

Erne might be sorry, yet it seems like Hitchcock believes the Blues should’ve made him regret that hit in a more direct way, as he told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s Jeremy Rutherford and NHL.com’s Lou Korac.

“These are delicate issues within the team. You probably would like to see a response there,” Hitchcock said. “We want to become a team.”

Perhaps Stewart, 25, simply believes there’s a better time and place to make such a statement.

“It’s an 18 yr old kid (Erne),” Stewart said. “I don’t know how it’s going to look when one of our heavies goes out there and tries to attack him.”

The Tampa Bay Lightning suffered an injury of their own as Henri Ikonen needed help off the ice after a hit into the boards, but Bolts head coach Jon Cooper described it as a clean hit to the Tampa Bay Tribune’s Damien Cristodero.

Sobotka, 26, was able to leave the locker room under his own power, but onlookers noticed a big bump under his left eye. The team expects to learn more about his condition on Thursday morning.

Follow James O’Brien @cyclelikesedins