It's not a minor question! Implicating the Norwegian Navy drastically increases the number of people that need to keep this secret. Using a warship drastically increases the scrutiny applied to the ship.
NATO had plenty of big navy drills around the area last year. Who would complain about NATO ships in the area? Russia? Why do you even get hung up on that point?
https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/news_196240.htm?selectedL...
Did you just get here from Twitter?
I don't care if its Hersh or otherwise, if someone says 1+1=3 then what they are saying doesn't add up. Debunking the Hersh story isn't a claim about Russia doing it to themselves, nor even a rejection of the hypothesis that the US did it. It merely refutes the Hersh story as evidence one way or the other.