Buffalo Sabres Close Out Sunshine State Series

The Buffalo Sabres will close out their two-game road trip to the Sunshine State on Saturday evening as they visit the Tampa Bay Lightning Saturday evening for a 7 pm puck drop.

Based on this morning’s pregame skate, as well as post-practice comments from Buffalo Sabres head coach Dan Bylsma, we already know that both Johan Larsson and Carlo Colaiacovo will sit out tonight’s game as the extra forwards.

Both Chad Johnson and Nathan Lieuwen were at practice this morning, and as of this afternoon, it’s to be determined which netminder Sabres fans will see in goal this evening.

Heading into tonight’s game, the Sabres are coming off Thursday’s 3-2 loss to the Florida Panthers. Jake McCabe scored his first NHL goal, and Tyler Ennis notched one, with Johnson stopping 26 of 29 shots faced.

Heading into tonight’s game, the Sabres are coming off Thursday’s 3-2 loss to the Florida Panthers. Jake McCabe scored his first NHL goal, and Tyler Ennis notched one, with Johnson stopping 26 of 29 shots faced.

The Sabres’ power play went 1 for 6 that night, while their penalty kill was effective on three of five opportunities.

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The Sabres, of course, are still contending with injuries. Though captain Brian Gionta returned to play for Thursday’s game, Zach Bogosian remains out of the lineup, having been on injured reserve with a lower body injury since October 8. Cody McCormick has still not been cleared to play, Bobby Sanguinetti is still out, and then – of course – there’s Robin Lehner’s high-ankle sprain.

Saturday’s game marks the second of four meetings between the Buffalo Sabres and the Tampa Bay Lightning this season. The Lightning defeated Buffalo by a score of 4-1 a week ago. The teams will meet twice more in the next few weeks to close out their season series.

Players to watch tonight for the Buffalo Sabres include Ryan O’Reilly, captain Gionta and Rasmus Ristolainen.

O’Reilly has six points (3-3) in his last six games against the Lightning, while Gionta leads the Sabres with 26 points (13-13) in 41 career games against Tampa Bay.

Ristolainen, meanwhile, has emerged so far this season as the Sabres’ top defenseman. He enters this evening’s game on a two-game point streak (1-2) with all three points coming on the power play.

He’s also ranked ninth in the league with an average ice time of 24:49 per game (entering Friday games).

As usual, one of the players the Sabres will have to watch Saturday night will be captain Steven Stamkos – but one player they won’t have to deal with is defenseman Nikita Nesterov, who was suspended two games without pay for boarding Dallas Stars forward Curtis McKenzie, who was then taken to an area hospital.

Victor Hedman is also going to miss tonight’s game after sustaining an undisclosed injury in Thursday’s game against Dallas.

In his place will be Slater Koekkoek, ready to make his regular-season debut with the Lightning after being recalled from the Syracuse Crunch on Friday.

Alex Killorn is also expected to be in tonight’s lineup. He missed Thursday’s Lightning game with an upper-body injury.

Ben Bishop will start in goal for the Lightning against the Buffalo Sabres.

Following Saturday evening’s game, the Sabres return home for three games. They’ll host the Toronto Maple Leafs for the first time this regular season on Wednesday; the currently 5-0 Habs then come to town next Friday. The Devils then come into FNC the following day.

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