Dylan Cozens injured by his teammate during 3 on 3 tournament.

This is definitely not the way you want to start your career in the National Hockey League.

On Saturday morning the Buffalo Sabres held a 3 on 3 tournament among their young up and coming prospects and things quickly turned to disaster for the Buffalo Sabres. In what should have been a friendly game between players on the same team, arguably the organization's top prospect Dylan Cozens was injured after taking what has been described as a big hit from one of his very own teammates. WKBW's Matthew Bove was on hand for the scrimmage and has reported that it was 23 year old defenseman Brandon Hickey who delivered the hit and according to Bove Hickey "leveled" Cozens.

This will of course be very upsetting to fans of the Sabres as Cozens is far more valuable a prospect at this time than Hickey, with Cozens occupying the top spot while Hickey might have as may as 20 - 25 players ahead of him in that regard. Hickey was a former 3rd round draft selection (64th overall) of the Calgary Flames at the 2014 NHL Entry Draft and would go on to play 4 seasons at Boston University before joining the Rochester Americans for his first season in the American Hockey League this year. 

Cozens on the other hand is coming off 3 seasons in the Western Hockey League, his most recent was a dominant one in which he recorded 34 goals and 50 assists for a whopping 84 points in 68 games played.This led to him being selected in the 1st round (7th overall) of the 2019 NHL Entry Draft by the Buffalo Sabres, and as a result you have to imagine that they are equally angry at this time. To be fair to Hickey here we do not know that this hit was a egregious one, however you have to imagine that this will do his career no favors as far as the Buffalo Sabres are concerned moving forward. 

Cozens seemed to be favoring his hand as he left the ice, a moment that was captured on video by Bove, and there has since been confirmation from the Sabres that Cozens did indeed suffer an injury to his thumb on the play.