Zach Bogosian has missed the first 22 games of this season for the Buffalo Sabres. Bogosian udnerwent surgery on his ailing hip last April. The initial recovery time for the procedure was set at 5-6 months, however, Bogosian encountered a setback in his rehab over the summer.
Bogosian missed the entire training camp. He skated on his own for five weeks before he started skating in team practices in mid-November.
Sabres team doctors have cleared Bogo for take-off.
Bogosian, 29, will make his season debut for the Buffalo Sabres against the Florida Panthers and will skate with Rasmus Dahlin. Bogosian and Dahlin were impressive playing together last season.
In 2018-19, the Dahlin-Bogosian pair played the most TOI at even strength for the Sabres. Dahlin-Bogosian had a 52.53 CF%.
Bogosian will also play the penalty kill.
When healthy, Bogosian adds immediate value by way of excellent passing and skating. Bogo also finishes his checks and blocks shots. In 65 games played last season, Bogosian delivered 83 hits and blocked 116 shots.
The Sabres and Panthers will tangle at 5:00pm Eastern in Sunrise, Florida.
The Sabres brought eight defensemen with them to Florida. Botterilll is desperately seeking a top six forward to add to his stuggling offense and he is willing to trade a defenseman and other assets to get the deal done.
At Saturday's practice, Ralph Kreuger deployed the following D pairs:
Miller-Montour
McCabe-Ristolainen
Dahlin-Bogosian
Scandella-Jokiharju
After the Saturday skate in Sunrise, Kreuger said its tough turkey that he has too many defensemen and only six can play per game.
"It’s part of being a team. You’re not always going to like the role you have, the ice time you get or if you’re then scratched, but how do you react to that and how do you still support your teammates?"
So far, we've seen nothing but support from players who haven't been called to play in a game and are watching from the outside. They're the first guys in the room to greet the guys coming off the ice at the end of the game. We need to continue with that spirit."
Colin Miller will return to the lineup after sitting out four of the last five games. Rookie Henri Jokiharju and veteran Marco Scandella will be the scratched for the Sabres on Sunday.
Smashed up against the ceiling of his salary cap, Sabres GM Jason Botterill made two roster moves on Friday to clear the way for Bogosian's return to action.
Botterill waived puck moving defenseman John Gilmour and placed forward Tage Thompson on injured reserve. Gilmour cleared waivers and is now with the Rochester Amerks. Gilmour, 23, made the Sabres roster out of training camp as the seventh defenseman. Gilmour has played just four games this season for the Sabres, his first after signing a one-year, $700K contract with them in the offseason. The left-shot defenseman spent the first three seasons of his NHL career with the New York Rangers, but after failing to become a full-time player with them qualified for Group VI unrestricted free agency.
The Amerks blue line just added more fire power with Gilmour who joins Lawrence Pilut, Will Borgen, Casey Fitzgerald, Jacob Bryson, Casey Nelson, and Zach Redmond.
Jason Botterill now has 14 healthy, quality defensemen in the family with eight in Buffalo and six in Rochester.
NHL teams continue to beat on Botterill's door in hopes of completing a trade for a defensemen or two .
Thompson will miss the next 3-5 weeks with a right shoulder injury that he suffered last Sunday against the Chicago Blackhawks. Thompson was injured in his first game of the season for the Sabres after being called up to replace the injured Kyle Okposo, who suffered a concussion.
Eichel and Company are struggling mightily and are mired in a 2-8-2 slump.
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The Sabres and the Buffalo Bills are playing on the same day for the second of five times this season after doing so three times last season.
The teams have played on the same date 221 times, with both teams winning their respective games on 49 of those days.
The Sabres are 118-69-34 when playing on a Bills game day and the Bills enter this game 94-125-2 on those dates.
The last time the Sabres and Bills both won on the same date was December 16, 2018.
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With 13 goals in 22 games so far this season, Sabres captain Jack Eichel is already nearly halfway to his previous best goal total of 28 goals scored last season.
Eichel’s goal scoring prowess through 22 games currently has him on pace to finish the season with 48 goals and 97 points, which would be the highest goal and point totals by a Sabre since Pat LaFontaine (53G,95A) and Alexander Mogilny (76G,51A) in 1992-93.
Samson Reinhart’s eight goals through 22 games puts him on pace for a career-high total (30). Reinhart is in a contract year and going to get paid this summer.
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