The Traverse City Prospects Tournament opened yesterday in Michigan, and the Sabres opened the tourney with a 3-2 victory over the prospects from the Columbus Blue Jackets.
The defending champion Sabres (man, that’s a phrase I hope to be able to type someday in a different context) saw goals from Nicholas Baptiste, Justin Bailey, and the game winner from Rasmus Ristolainen en route to the victory over C-Bus. Nathan Lieuwen stopped 26 shots en rout to the W, and a good start for the defending champs.
It’s a bit disturbing that the Sabres were outshot all game (22-28, and just 2 in the third period) in that we hope this trend doesn’t continue in future iterations of the big club. Head coach (and Amerks coach) Chadd Cassidy wasn’t too worried though, saying ” I think the trap that you fall into is you start feeling probably a little too good about yourselves. They showed some push back and really took control after we went up 2-0″.
Buffalo plays the NY Rangers prospects tomorrow at 4pm, then again on Sunday at 3:30pm against Carolina’s futures. If the Sabres can manage to finish first in their division, they’ll then play again for the championship on Monday evening. If not, they’ll simply play for pride. All games are being broadcast on WWKB 1520AM and are also being streamed live on Sabres.com.
Here’s the lineup courtesy of Sabres.com:
Daniel Catenacci – Johan Larsson – Joel Armia
Kevin Sundher – Zemgus Girgensons – Nicholas Baptiste
Eric Locke – Colin Jacobs – Logan Nelson
Peter Trainor – Justin Kea – Justin Bailey
Brady Austin – Chad Ruhwedel (C)
Nikita Zadorov – Rasmus Ristolainen
Alex Lepkowski – Connor Boland
Nathan Lieuwen
Andrey Makarov