The Buffalo Sabres finalized their 23-man roster today, and GM Darcy Regier (with help from Andrew Peters’ Twitter account) announced that Mikhail Grigorenko will be one of those 23 men.
Looks like “the kid” has a new stall. #lookinggood twitter.com/76_AndrewPeter…
— Andrew Peters (@76_AndrewPeters) January 18, 2013
Though the Sabres won’t announce if he’s playing or not (um, OK) Grigorenko was still centering a line with Ville Leino and Steve Ott this morning. To make room on the roster, the Sabres sent three players through waivers yesterday, and put Cody McCormick and Nathan Gerbe on IR today. Buffalo will now have five games and ninedays to decide what to do with Grigorenko. If he’s still in the lineup on Tuesday the 29th against the Leafs, then he’ll be in Buffalo for good.
With the roster now set, the forward lines and defensive pairings seem to be set for Sunday as well. Here’s how they looked at practice this morning, according to the team website:
Vanek-Hodgson-Pominville
Foligno-Ennis-Stafford
Ott-Grigorenko-Leino
Scott-Hecht-Kaleta
The defensive pairings were: Myers-Regehr; Ehrhoff-Sulzer; Sekera-Leopold; Weber-Brennan
There’s not much here we weren’t expecting, though it appears that Alexander Sulzer has the inside track on the 6th defensive starter spot, seeing as he’s paired with Christian Ehrhoff. TJ Brennan and Mike Weber will likely be healthy scratches on Sunday, barring unforeseen injury, joining forward Matt Ellis in the owner’s box.
The Sabres have one final practice tomorrow at 10:30 at the FNC, open to the public, and will also be holding a press conference with Darcy Regier, Ted Black, and Terry Pegula tomorrow at noon. And then (and I’ve been waiting to type this for a few months now) the Sabres take on the Philadelphia Flyers on Sunday at 12:30, right here in Buffalo.