Montreal (33-27-6, 72 points, 3rd NE, 8th East)
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Buffalo (42-16-5, 89 points, 1st NE, 1st East)
Friday, March 2, 2007
8:00pm
HSBC Arena in Buffalo
This is the 7th meeting in the season series, with Buffalo leading, 3-2-1.
Last meeting: January 20th, Montreal won 4-3.
Ahhhh. The Sabres lineup finally gets a reinforcement for tonight's game with the recently acquired Dainius Zubrus from Washington. We'll definitely need him to rejoin the forward ranks, as it is not known as of this posting if Danny Briere will return from the flu bug that kept him in the hotel room in Toronto Tuesday night. There's even worse news on the flu front, as apparently Hank the Tank Tallinder also caught wind of the ailment. It's not known yet whether he'll be able to go. One player who still will not be able to go is Chris Drury. While he is now skating on his own, he has been ruled out of this weekend's games while he recovers from a concussion resulting from a Chris Neil cheap shot last week.
Other than that, the injury report remains the same. No Drury, Afinogenov, Paille, Kotalik, Spacek, Gaustad, and Connolly.
That means three things:
1) More ice time for the kids. Drew Stafford will hopefully never go back to Rochester, because he's quickly realizing his NHL potential. Pat Kaleta will keep being the shit disturber that he is, Clarke "The General" MacArthur will keep providing quality ice time, and Michael Ryan will hopefully just not get in the way. Mark Mancari was sent back to the Amerks yesterday with the acquisition of Zubrus.
2) Lots and lots of ice time for Zubrus. He's used to it, playing 19 minutes a game with Alex Ovechkin, and Lindy Ruff's already stated that he's going to be playing in all game situations. So expect him to accrue about that much ice time in a Sabres jersey. He'll be wearing #15.
3) Praying that the flu bug doesn't hit Ryan Miller.
Montreal has taken a harpooning in the media (big surprise) because of their lack of trade deadline activity. Mainly, not trading away their biggest assets, including Sheldon "One Trick Pony" Souray. They've been hampered by the loss of CG's favorite goalie, Cristobal HU-ET (really, she's got a Huet t-shirt), and have dropped to 8th place in the East, one point ahead of Carolina. If Montreal does not make the playoffs, I would not want to be in that city while it happens. Sorry guys.
Montreal has also been hit with the flu bug, with Chris Higgins, Saku Koivu and Sergei Samsonov the biggest casualties. They're one team that I can actually feel bad for between the injuries and the illnesses. Okay, maybe not....
I'd fully expect Ryan Miller and Jaroslav Halak between the pipes tonight, although it's a possibility that David Aebischer will be in net for Montreal. I'll try to provide updates as they happen, and I'll be around to possibly live-blog this game. I've always wanted to try that.
So we'll have about a 8:10 start at HSBC tomorrow night. Should be a good game.
(Update 3/2, 10:22am: Switched Halak and Aebischer)
@
Buffalo (42-16-5, 89 points, 1st NE, 1st East)
Friday, March 2, 2007
8:00pm
HSBC Arena in Buffalo
This is the 7th meeting in the season series, with Buffalo leading, 3-2-1.
Last meeting: January 20th, Montreal won 4-3.
Ahhhh. The Sabres lineup finally gets a reinforcement for tonight's game with the recently acquired Dainius Zubrus from Washington. We'll definitely need him to rejoin the forward ranks, as it is not known as of this posting if Danny Briere will return from the flu bug that kept him in the hotel room in Toronto Tuesday night. There's even worse news on the flu front, as apparently Hank the Tank Tallinder also caught wind of the ailment. It's not known yet whether he'll be able to go. One player who still will not be able to go is Chris Drury. While he is now skating on his own, he has been ruled out of this weekend's games while he recovers from a concussion resulting from a Chris Neil cheap shot last week.
Other than that, the injury report remains the same. No Drury, Afinogenov, Paille, Kotalik, Spacek, Gaustad, and Connolly.
That means three things:
1) More ice time for the kids. Drew Stafford will hopefully never go back to Rochester, because he's quickly realizing his NHL potential. Pat Kaleta will keep being the shit disturber that he is, Clarke "The General" MacArthur will keep providing quality ice time, and Michael Ryan will hopefully just not get in the way. Mark Mancari was sent back to the Amerks yesterday with the acquisition of Zubrus.
2) Lots and lots of ice time for Zubrus. He's used to it, playing 19 minutes a game with Alex Ovechkin, and Lindy Ruff's already stated that he's going to be playing in all game situations. So expect him to accrue about that much ice time in a Sabres jersey. He'll be wearing #15.
3) Praying that the flu bug doesn't hit Ryan Miller.
Montreal has taken a harpooning in the media (big surprise) because of their lack of trade deadline activity. Mainly, not trading away their biggest assets, including Sheldon "One Trick Pony" Souray. They've been hampered by the loss of CG's favorite goalie, Cristobal HU-ET (really, she's got a Huet t-shirt), and have dropped to 8th place in the East, one point ahead of Carolina. If Montreal does not make the playoffs, I would not want to be in that city while it happens. Sorry guys.
Montreal has also been hit with the flu bug, with Chris Higgins, Saku Koivu and Sergei Samsonov the biggest casualties. They're one team that I can actually feel bad for between the injuries and the illnesses. Okay, maybe not....
I'd fully expect Ryan Miller and Jaroslav Halak between the pipes tonight, although it's a possibility that David Aebischer will be in net for Montreal. I'll try to provide updates as they happen, and I'll be around to possibly live-blog this game. I've always wanted to try that.
So we'll have about a 8:10 start at HSBC tomorrow night. Should be a good game.
(Update 3/2, 10:22am: Switched Halak and Aebischer)
1 comment:
Briere, the flu?
I think he's just practicing his diving techniques for the upcoming playoff run. But to each is own I guess.
It's never to early for a beer. Which is why I'm drinking one right now. Enjoy the weekend both of you!
Kris
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