The Buffalo Sabres are returning to the friendly confines of the First Niagara Center after spending the last week on a four game road trip. The Sabres are facing off against a Lightning team that undressed them in Tampa on Saturday night with a 3-0 shutout.
The Sabres are going to be sporting a different look from the starting lineup on Saturday night. Tyler Ennis will be out of the lineup with an ankle injury after running into the net feet first on Saturday night. Ennis will most likely miss a couple of weeks and will be evaluated on a week by week basis with what is being called an ankle sprain. Matt Ellis should be replacing Ennis in the lineup and if he does make the lineup, he would probably be centering the fourth line. The other option for the Sabres is having Jochen Hecht return to the lineup, but that still depends on his health. Hecht is optimistic that he will return, just he doesn’t know when yet:
“I’m moving in the right direction,” Hecht said. “I’m getting better. I had a good week last week. I just have to hope things keep progressing to the point where I feel 100 percent comfortable to go out there.
“It would be nice to get in there [with the team short-handed], but I have to look at the big picture. I want to come back for the rest of the year not a game here or a game there and battle this the whole year.”
The Tampa Bay Lightning are going to keep things exactly the same from Saturday night and that means that Mathieu Garon is going to get his second straight start against the Sabres. Garon made some solid saves against the Sabres on Saturday, but the Lightning’s 1-3-1 forced many of the opportunities to the outside and made Garon’s life easier. Right now, Garon has to be the Lightning’s number one goaltender after Dwayne Roloson struggled out of the gate. Garon has a 2-1-1 record with a 1.51 GAA and .948 SV% in his five games played this season.
Game time is 7:30 pm and can be seen on VERSUS tonight.