Updated 12:25pm:


Lindy Ruff has said that Ville Leino has been placed on injured reserve, retroactive to Sunday 1/20. Leino's leg injury is not showing any positive signs of improvement, therefore, he will join Cody McCormick on the injured list so that the Sabres can get down to the 23 man roster limit.

Nathan Gerbe is taking Leino's spot in the lineup.

Matt Ellis will be the forward scratched tonight. Mike Weber and TJ Brennan will again be the D scratches.



***

Looks like Nathan Gerbe has been cleared by team doctors to resume playing.


Thanks to Kevin Snow of sabres.com, here Sabres morning skate lines:

Vanek-Hodgson-Pominvile
Foligno-Ennis-Stafford
Gerbe-Grigorenko-Ott
Scott-Hecht Kaleta

Ville Leino didn't skate this morning. Its likely that he will go to the injured list to make room for Gerbe. More from Lindy Ruff after practice.

The more I think of the Gerbe-Grigo-Ott line, the more I like it. Gerbe is not afraid to mix it up on the walls. He played his best hockey for the Sabres when he was paired with Kaleta and Gaustad the past two seasons. Gerbe can skate and can sauce the puck. One of my Twitter followers, @AUH20_Time suggested to me that Gerbe may well be the new Frederic Roy. Grigo played alongside the diminutive Roy while with the Quebec Remparts last season, and the two thrived together. Roy scored 27 goals and added 65 assists. Grigo scored 40 goals and added 45 assists. Gerbe may well be the x-factor in terms of getting Grigo on the score sheet in his third NHL game.

Gerbe has one of the silkiest sets of mitts on the Sabres roster. Grigo will create chance with centre-drive action to Ward’s blue ice, where he will screen and look for re-directs wile Gerbe and Ott back the suspect Carolina D down with speed. Ott and Gerbe will have clean looks from the circles down tonight. Rebounds will be littering Ward’s dance floor. CRASH THE NET, boys!


**


Enroth will battle Ward

**


Kirk Muller is shuffling his lines and mixing up his D pairing for the Sabres game tonight:

Joe Corvo is scratched.

Jeff Skinner will skate in top six after he was demoted to bottom six for Tuesday's loss to Tampa. The Canes have scored only 2 goals this season, while Ward has allowed 9 goals against.

McBain-Pitkanen
Sanguinetti-Harrison
Gleason-Faulk

Canes lines:

Tlusty-E. Staal-Semin
Skinner- J. Staal-Dalpe
Bowman-Jokinen-LaRose
Westgarth-Brent-Dwyer


***

Join the Discussion: » 524 Comments » Post New Comment

» Hailing Taxis

» He With The Gold Makes The Rules

» Sedentary Seven

» The Sedentary Seven

» GadZuccs