FanHouse Nathan Gerbe

The Buffalo Sabres announced today that recent call-up RW Nathan Gerbe would be out at least two weeks with the ubiquitous-through-shadow, "Upper Boddy Injury." Gerbe was a target of abuse all night against the Devils last Saturday and took one particularly nasty sandwich between Jamie Langenbrunner and, I believe if memory serves, David Clarkson. The Sabres aren't talking but a reaction shot of him after the hit on the bench leads me to believe the injury is shoulder-related.

Speaking of shoulders, Captain Craig Rivet (D) gave out an update on his injured shoulder yesterday. It was injured way back at the beginning of the month vs. Montreal. Rivet, ever the tough guy, played three games with it but was a game-time scratch on Friday vs. the Lightning.

"It's something that I tried to play with," Rivet said of the injury. "Obviously it was really limiting what I can do on the ice and really affecting my game... the pain issue, you can get through those things but when it makes things that much more difficult for you on the ice you have to take a step back and try to rehabilitate it... see if we can strengthen it up."

According to yesterday's interview with Lindy Ruff, post-practice, Rivet will be evaluated in two week intervals until he's ready to return to the lineup. Shoulder injuries are rough in that he can still skate adn keep his conditioning up, but he can't do any strength work and if this stretches on for any length of time may hamper him late in the season when you'd have to think the Sabres will need his brand of rough and ready play as the games get meaner and tighter.

On the healing front, uber pest Patrick Kaleta will replace Gerbe in the lineup for tomorow's game against the Devils. The Kaleta Missile Crisis has been out for 7 games with a neck injury sustained after a week of pounding by a number of teams for his antics on the ice. We'll see if this first serious injury changes his approach to the game.

I'm not holding my breath.

Ta,

It's a good question, honestly, as the Sabres prepare for their 3rd game of the season with 23 year-old Clarke MacArthur (CMac or the LIl' General to the faithful) filling in for "Broken" Jochen Hecht after Hecht underwent surgery today to repair a broken finger. This now marks the 3rd pivot that the Sabres have on the injured list to start this young season. Perennial question-mark Tim Connolly is out indefinitely with a fractured vertebrae while Paul Gaustad tore a ligament in his thumb beating up Marc-Andre Bergeron in the pre-season, which required surgery to repair and three to four weeks to heal. I'm not expecting Goose to return until the end of October.

MacArthur, a product of the WHL and on the bubble at the start of camp, will take over for Hecht between Jason Pominville and Daniel Paille on what is, nominally, Buffalo's 2nd line. CMac is a Left-Wing by trade and training but has been pressed into this centerman role in the past.

The part many have to be wondering about is why they didn't decide to bring up either Marek Zagrapan or Nathan Gerbe from Portland, as it would seem the obvious move. I have to think that with the game tomorrow night in New York and Friday's home at The Bank that there's no point since neither of them would see the ice against the 5-0-0 New York Rangers anyways. If the MacArthur experiment fails then Matt Ellis has more experience, if less skill, and neither Gerbe or Zags would help provide the disciplined positional/defensive game needed to play Top 6 minutes against the likes of Drury and/or Gomez.

The biggest issue is the loss of Hecht himself. He's such a smart and capable hockey player in all three zones of the ice that it's not possible to replace, espeically in the context of Connolly and Gaustad's absence. The challenges of the 82 game season start early for many teams. With two impressive wins to start the season it will be interesting to see how this unit handles this setback.

Ta,

Well, Sabres fans the questions about who will and who will not be in the lineup on opening night are pretty much answered. WGR550 has reported that the Buffalo Sabres sent eight players back to their AHL affiliate in Portalnd on Friday. They are as follows: Chris Butler, Nathan Gerbe, Tim Kennedy, Mark Mancari, Matheiu Darche, Dylan Hunter, Marek Zagrapan and Mike Funk. Mancari and Darche have both been effectively waived. Here's hoping Mancari doesn't pull a Pominville for someone else. Not likely, honestly.

With the injuries to Paul Gaustad and Tim Connolly this team is now officially short at center depth. It looks like recent waiver-bait Matt Ellis will be manning the third pivot until one of those guys is ready to play. I doubt Connolly's situation is serious at this point of one of Gerbe or Zagrapan would still be in Buffalo getting more experience for opening night. I'm sure there are a ton of people who would have liked to see Gerbe on the roster but, truthfully, the jump from college to the pros is a big leap and even a few months of living the grind of life in the 'A' is valuable preparation for the NHL. For the team it gives them time to sort out just who does and who does not what to be here come the deadline in February.

So, there will be just 2 scoring lines going out against the Wings on Sunday as a bottom 6 of MacArthur-Ellis-Kotalik / Peters-Mair-Kaleta is not going to scare any many goalies in this league. It also looks like they'll be keeping 8 defensemen as Mike Weber is still with the big club. I wouldn't be surprised if that changed by next Friday.

Welcome to the NHL FanHouse 2008-09 season preview. While other sites are previewing "30 teams in 30 days," we decided to take advantage of the extra time off before the start of the season to bring you all 30 previews over the next three weeks. We're counting down in reverse order of finish from last season in each conference every weekday from now until October 3. Look for an Eastern Conference preview every morning and a Western Conference preview every afternoon. Click here to read them all.

Who's In: Patrick Lalime, G (FA-CHI), Craig Rivet, D (Trade-SJS), Teppo Numminen, D (Return from Heart Surgery)

Who's Out: Joceyln Thibault, G (FA), Dmitri Kalinin, D (FA, NYR), Steve Bernier, RW (Trade, VAN)

What's Changed: Not a whole lot, frankly, unless one considers the number of players the supposedly stingy Sabres have under long-term contract now. That, coupled with the lack of tragedy during training camp (*fingers crossed*) should help lighten the mood in the room just a bit. But, honestly, that's just the way this organization wants it (especially in comparison to last year's off-season). With 20 of the 30 people who suited up for the Sabres in 07-08 having been drafted by the team, this is the textbook example of a team that promotes from within.

Recently extended GM Darth Regier believes in building via the draft and come what may that's going to be how he does it. I'm sure nothing has made Regier happier than resolving the dual-affiliation with Rochester which has been hampering their ability to develop prospects properly. During this summer they finalized changing their AHL affiliation to Portland and retained the same staff that helped feed Anaheim a Stanley Cup.

This afternoon WGR out of Buffalo reported that the Sabres had signed RW sniper Jason Pominville to a 5 year extension, less than a day before the deadline imposed by Pominville himself on negotiations earlier this week. The 26 year old former 2nd round pick signed a 5 year, $26.5 million contract, in four of which he would ahve been an Unrestricted Free Agent. Given that he's been putting up nearly a point per game making a little over $1million per season, he might have been the best deal in the league.

His interview from this afternoon with Schopp and the Bulldog is here.

Again, as with the recent signings of Ryan Miller, Paul Gaustad and Daniel Paille, GM Darth Regier has stuck to his plan of locking up the talent that this team has grown from within, especially that core of guys who were so succesful together when they played at Rochester of the AHL.

I talked about the potential logjam at the lower 3 spots on the Sabres blueline the other day. And, coincidentally, John McGourty at NHL.com just posted up an in-depth look at the team's top kids in the pipeline who will pull on a Portand Pirates sweater in a couple of months. It's a good review and nicely compliments the coverage at Hockeysfuture.com (who, have not updated their rankings in a while). All NHL.com prospect news can be found here.

Looking at the organizational depth chart it's a near complete reversal of a few years ago, where they had practically no good defensive prospects, and now they have an abundance. So much so that they've been experimenting with moving Marc-Andre Gragnani to the wing, as much to fill a need as to overcome his slowness to grasp the defensive side of the game at the pro level.

Given that depth, they still traded up 1 spot to nab 6'7" Tyler Myers at this year's draft. I love those WHL defense-men, btw. That league just seems to produce tough, well-rounded players. The thing I like about the Myers pick is that he's not only big and strong, but right-handed as well. Though, as they say, "Mean can't be taught." We'll see if the WHL/AHL brings out his inner-Pronger.

Almost lost in all of this talk is where the development of former 1st rounder (15th overall, 2005) Marek Zagrapan is going. With reports of his tryout with Spartak Moscow and his inability to force the Sabres to bring him along, ie. lackluster play at the AHL level, Zags is something of an enigma. The Sabres offense is dependent on a healthy Tim Connolly this season, taking pressure off of Derek Roy, and if that doesn't happen it may fall to Zags to provide some offense from the lower 6 forwards. More gifted offensively than past slow-developing 1st rounders, like Jiri Novotny, the door is open for Zags to take the initiative and push for a roster spot.

Over at NHL.com John McGourty has an in-depth look at the top prospects in the Sabres system. It's a mix of the standard scouting report blurb and quips from an interview with John Christiano, a scout with the Sabres. Of note in this piece is the number of prospects who spent last year in Rochester that are supposedly going to be vying for roster spots next month.

I agree that LW Clarke MacArthur is ready for a shot at the big club, as he didn't look out of place when called up last February/March. He was even asked to play center for the first time in his life, filling in as admirably as one would expect. Where I have to take issue with the article and Christiano is the idea that either C Marek Zagrapan or D Andrej Sekera are going to be pushing the roster in any way other than as an injury call-up.

With Zagrapan it's a matter of his being on the young side of 21. I don't see him putting on the strength and conditioning needed to be a full-time contributor at the NHL level this year. I'm sure the Sabres would prefer for him to really break out down in 'The A' and dominate at that level before making that transition to the big leagues.

For Sekera it's simply a numbers game. He's currently 8th on the depth chart and the Sabres have 23 guys under contract. He would, of course, be better served logging 20 minutes a night in Rochester than watching Sabres games from the press box. But, that said, if he puts in a strong camp, so strong that it cannot be ignored, then he makes one of the current guys on the roster very expendable... I'm looking at you Dmitri Kalinin.

With Buffalo one has to look at the prospect pool from the perspective of who it is that kid is going to be replacing when they're ready. Sekera looks to me like a Spacek replacement, while Marc-Andre Gragnani is nearly a clone of Brian Campbell. Chris Butler and Mike Funk are obviously meant to be there for when Tallinder grows too expensive. Zagrapan is cut from the same mold as Tim Connolly. Dennis Persson is your next Teppo Numminen, while Nathan Gerbe might just be the second coming of Theo Fleury, hopefully without all the alcoholism.

One thing is for certain, though, when one looks over the Sabres prospect pool, every one of them can skate and move the puck with authority. Though the captains moved on to other (and greener) pastures this past July, the philosophy of the organization has not changed. Skate hard, defend hard and attack in transition.

For a full look at what's in the Sabres pipeline I recommend a look at the team page at HockeysFuture.com.

Ta,