Buffalo's playoff hopes ended on Friday night when they were thrashed by the NY Rangers on home ice. The eighth place Rangers pasted the New Jersey Devils on Sunday afternoon, thus ending the the playoff hopes of yet another Eastern Conference team.
Steve Ott and the Sabres are in spoiler mode right now.
The Sabres will host the ninth place Winnipeg Jets on Monday night. The jets now trail the Rangers by three points (52 to 49). A loss to the Sabres would ground the Jets and their playoff hopes. Both teams have three games to play. Losing in Buffalo on Monday will doom the Jets.
The Sabres will do their dead-level best to block out the angst and anger of missing the playoffs for the second season in a row.
The Sabres skated this afternoon, and Ott talked about playing with pride and holding one's head high. There' s no quit in #9. His passion level will be at all time high on Monday night when the Jets look to ascend into the top eight.
Ott is actually is taking solace i knnocking off the Jets. He wants the Jets players and coaches to feel the sickening feeling that loves in the pit of his stomach right now.
“Winnipeg’s a team, I guess you can say jealousy breeds a little bit of frustration, and if they have a chance at this, we can possibly knock them off tomorrow and feel the same way that we feel,” Ott said. “Personally and pride way, I would like to do that to another team so they have the same feeling.”
I like the way Ott's thinking.
Let's see if his warrior spirit is adhered to by his Sabres teammates.
Mikhail Grigorenko will indeed take the place of injured forward Pat Kaleta on Monday night when Winnipeg comes calling. He will also play against Pittsburgh and NY Islanders.
Ron Rolston said as much after today's practice, per Buffalo News.
"For a guy like Mikhail who will be in there, again with another opportunity to do what he needs to do to be a member of this team and be somebody who can help us be successful, it’ll be an opportunity for him," interim coach Ron Rolston said.
"We’re going to see these next three games with Mikhail. He’s got skill. You watch him out there, he’s got big skill. It’s going to be all, just like the rest of them that we ask them every game and every practice, just the compete.
"So we’re going to see the next three games where that’s at and then continue the evaluation."
Grigo skated today with Hecht and Gerbe.
The Sabres demoted Luke Adam to Rochester earlier this week, which made Grigo the extra forward. He was scratched for the Bruins and Rangers games.
The Russian rookie can use Monday's game versus Winnipeg, and presumably the Pittsburgh and NY Islanders to get himself mentally and physically dialed in and to prepare him for the upcoming Amerks postseason.
Thanks, sabres.com
Grigo said earlier this week that his re-assignment from Buffalo to Q-City was very beneficial for him. Patrick Roy played Grigo for over 20 minutes TOI per game, and made sure to put him on the ice in key moments. The Ramparts PP became all the more powerful and effective when Grigo returned to the lineup of the Remparts. Playing 6 minutes or less in Buffalo, riding dirty with Big John Scott wasn't adding any value to the kid's NHL development. It was best for the kid to return to Patrick Roy's bench in order to regain his confidence and to pump new vim and vigor back into his dynamic game.
Grigo told me earlier this week that he feels that he is in excellent physical condition right now. The Khaborovsk native has played 77 games for 4 different teams since last August.
Here's his impressive body of work:
33 regular season games played for the Quebec Remparts 11 playoff games in QCity 22 games played in Buffalo between the end of January and mid-March 7 games that he dominated in for Russia at the World Junior Championships 4 exhibition games played at the U20 Subway Summit Series last August.
The kid has a ton of tread still left on his high performance tires.
Time to take the finely tuned sports car out of the garage and to take it for a blast down the Scajacquada and The 33.
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