Hours after the news had permeated Pegulaville that Sabres Captain, Jason Pominville, is leaving Monday to play for DEL Adler Mannheim, comes news that Sabres centre, Tyler Ennis, has been injured, for a second time while playing for the SCL Tigers in Switzerland.
According to Szymon Szemberg of the IIHF, Ennis' European playing days are done, for now.
Ennis will require further evaluation and he is en route back to North America for treatment of the unknown injury. Ennis missed SCL's past two games (Davos, Lugano) after suffering his most recent injury on 11/24 vs. EV Zug.
Ennis injured his shoulder in October, which forced him to sit out several games.
He's only played in ten games in the months in his time in Austria, scoring three goals and adding five assists. Was it worth his while to play overseas during the 77 day old NHL lockout?
Its not known right now if Ennis suffered another injury to his previously dinged-up shoulder. According to two newspaper reports in Switzerland, Ennis has suffered an injured shoulder and he has requested his release so that he can have his injury attended to by his physician. Whether his doctor is in Buffalo, or in his offseason home of Edmonton, is not known at this time. One thing is for certain: Ennis cannot be cared for by the Buffalo Sabres team doctors during the NHL lockout. All players are locked out from their teams trainers, physicians, physical therapists, chiropractors, dentists, etc.
However, the Sabres should be concerned about their veteran pivot, who ended last season as the team's #1 centre. Stafford, Ennis and Foligno took charge of the Sabres offense in the final 12 games of last season and created a metric ton of offense in the final month of the season. In the end, all of their production was not enough to catapult the Sabres into a playoff spot. He ws sideline twice with serious ankle injuries in 2012. When healthy, Ennis was a lethal weapon.
Organizationally, the Sabres are very thin at centre right now with Ennis and Hodgson (broken right hand) injured. CoHo skated this week in the red "no contact" vest. The suddenly struggling Amerks are hoping that he may be cleared to return this week. Luke Adam returned to the Amerks lineup Friday night vs. Toronto, after missing three games with a lower body deal. Phil Varone has been nursing an injury himself of late as well. Evan Rankin is also injured.
With every passing day of this lockout, and every new and nagging injury that occurs to their centre corps, the Sabres are looking at Mikhail Grigorenko with an eye towards their present, rather than their future. Grigo has been machine-gunning down opponents in the Q, scoring 24 goals and 20 assists in 26 games in Quebec already this season.
Were the lockout to end Monday 12/3, its very possible that Grigo would be Buffalo's #1 centre on the depth chart in the brief, yet important training camp.
Ennis chose to play for SCL because he was given the opportunity to play with his boyhood friend, and fellow Edmontonian, Jared Spurgeon of teh Minnesota Wild. Spurgeon is reportedly injured, and is heading home from the Swiss Alps as along with Ennis so that he too can seek further medical treatment.
More to come on this story...
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