Gerbe out as Kaleta returns

Little Sabre Nathan Gerbe is out for about two weeks with an upper body injury. He played very well during his time up in the NHL, and will be missed. It should be interesting to see if he is sent to the AHL once he gets healthy or if he stays up. Most likely there will be some other factors involved in that decision.

Patrick Kaleta on the other hand is returning from injury and will be back playing with the Sabres again in their next game on Wednesday night against the New Jersey Devils again.

The Blackhawks had an interesting game last night in a win over the Edmonton Oilers. Chicago won the game 9-2 in which the Blackhawks had 8 different players score and 15 of their 18 skaters had a point. In the beginning of the third period Ducan Keith scored a shorthanded goal to bring Chicago's lead to 8-1, at which point there was really little point to even playing the rest of the game.

Sabres outscore Tampa Bay

The Buffalo Sabres have finally won a game after holding onto a 4-3 victory over the Tampa Bay Lightning. This was a high scoring game, and despite the many penalties, every goal was scored during five on five play.

Stafford scored the first goal of the game, off of an assist from Gaustad. St Louis tied it up just a few minutes later. The same thing happened in the second period, with Buffalo twice scoring, and Tampa Bay both times quickly making it up.

In the third period Derek Roy scored, and the Sabres were able to prevent the Lightning from coming back this time.

This was an aggressive game with three fights in it. I was unaware of any hostility between these teams, but there appeared to be some in this game. The final fight of the night was the most unlikely between Jochen Hecht and Vincent Lecavalier. This is the first time that either of them got into a fight this season, and only Hecht's third fight in his career.

This was Nathan Gerbe's first NHL game, and he looked good throughout. While he had no points on the night he was on the ice for the Sabres first goal, and their game winner in the third, while not being on the ice for any goals against. The one penalty that was called against him, was a bad call, so his game was largely mistake free. He showed aggression and tied Stafford for the most shots on net for any of the Sabres in this game. He also won the single faceoff that he took in this game.

Buffalo next plays on Monday against the Penguins.

Official Three Stars

Derek Roy

Drew Stafford

Martin St Louis

My Three Stars

Drew Stafford (one goal, two assists, plus three, four shots)

Derek Roy (one goal, one assist, plus two)

Martin St Louis (one goal, one assist, plus three)

Gerbe debuts

Nathan Gerbe will finally be playing in his first NHL game when the Sabres play against Tampa Bay tonight.

After being drafted in the fifth round in 2005, he played for three years at Boston College, a team that did very well during his tenure there including winning the NCAA championship last spring.

He is a small player, but very talented and can generate offense all by himself. Hopefully he is the spark that the Sabres need to get their game back on track. While he obviously can't do everything by himself, he should be able to help the team alot simply by being there. To make room for him on the roster Mark Mancari was sent back down to the Portland Pirates.

Updates from Portland

The Portland Pirates are leading the AHL with an impressive 11-1-1 record. The team is being lead by Mark Mancari who has 11 goals and 13 assists in just 13 games. The Pirates are undefeated within the month of November, and Mancari has at least one goal in every game so far this month.

The rest of the team isn't doing bad either. Nathan Gerbe has 12 goals and 7 assists. Tim Kennedy has four goals and 15 assists. Mathieu Darche has six goals and six assists with almost all of his points coming within the past six games.

Whenever the Sabres need to recall a player from Portland, they will get someone with plenty of talent who can contribute to the team. They will not be bringing up Matt Ellis again, who after two games in Portland, has zero points and a negative two plus minus rating for a team that won both of it's games.

The Sabres may need to bring up a player soon, as Kotalik is out with a Hamstring issue, and Tim Connolly is also injured once again. Connolly's injury has been described as a "body musculosketal injury", which more or less confirms what we have always known in that he is all around broken and about to completely fall apart at a seconds notice. He is also being listed as week-to-week which indicates that they don't expect his general soreness/concussion/bruised chest/broken vertebra/stretched ligiment/sore groin to get better anytime soon.

Random pre-Boston updates

According to ESPN, the Sabres are 12-0-2 against Boston whenever Vanek scores at least one point. Given how the Austrian's play has been recently I'm feeling pretty good about that.

Nathan Gerbe has been playing well in Portland where he had two assists in his first game, and then scored two goals in a 3-2 win in game number two. The pirates are currently 2-1 on the year.

The Boston Bruins are 2-1-2 this season, so another trip to the shootout many be in the works. Goalie Tim Thomas has always been good against Buffalo, but Manny Fernandez is expected to start instead. Buffalo has not had to face him since before the lockout.

The last time Buffalo played the Bruins was the final game of last season, where Numminen finally came back, Vanek scored a hat-trick, and Jocelyn Thibault got a shutout to end his time as a Sabre.

Gerbe and Kennedy sent to the minors

With one more preseason game coming up, the Sabres have come close to finalizing their roster, sending a number of players to their AHL team in Portland. Included among the players sent down are Nathan Gerbe and Tim Kennedy, both college standouts who had hoped to make the team out of camp.

The team also sent down defensem3n Michael Funk, and Chris Butler who is also just out of the NCAA. A number of AHL veterans were also sent down including Marek Zagrapan, Dylan Hunter, and Mark Mancari, Mathieu Darche who will have to clear waivers.

Weber, Sekera, and Paetsch were all kept on defense, with Weber likely to be sent down before the season starts. On offense newcomer Matt Ellis was kept on the club as well as Clarke MacArthur, and Peters. Any of these players would have to clear waivers to be sent down to the AHL, and all signs point to the weakest player of these three (Peters) being a safe bet to stay at the NHL level. I think the team would be more willing to risk Ellis on waivers as opposed to a player that has been in their system for a long time now.

Real NHL action begins today as two games get started in Europe. With the Rangers and Lightning playing in Prague, and Pittsburgh and Ottawa playing in Stockholm. The Sabres still have one more preseason game on Sunday against the Detroit Red Wings.

Sabres win preseason game against Columbus

The Sabres won their preseason game Thursday night against the Columbus Blue Jackets, one night after losing a close game to Minnesota. Buffalo blew Columbus out in last nights game though. After Columbus got the first goal of the night from former Sabre Jiri Novotny, Buffalo came back strong and scored the next five straight goals before giving up a late one to Rick Nash. Teppo Numminen scored a goal in the game which is the first time he has done that in well over a year. Nathan Gerbe also scored an unassisted goal in the third quarter, giving him two for the preseason. Gerbe has been playing well, and lead the Sabres in shots on goal this game with four.

The game also had a number of penalties, with Peters, Rivet, and Stafford all getting fighting majors, and Weber earning a misconduct. Rivet has already gotten into a number of fights this preseason, so hopefully he can take on that role, allowing us to replace Peters.

Gerbe scores in preseason loss

Buffalo lost their second straight preseason game. Being preseason the big news is not the loss, but rather a goal by Nathan Gerbe. After having such a great year last season for NCAA Boston, Gerbe has a legitimate shot at winning rookie of the year if he can only make the team. Gerbe is an explosive talent, but is far back on a roster that is stuffed with forwards.

This pre-season game was a special event held in Glace de Roberval, a small town in Quebec, that won the right to host the game as part of a "Hockeyville contest". The arena the game took place in had only 1,237 seats, but drew a crowd of an additional 11,000 to watch on screens out side of the stadium.

Sabres sign Gerbe

The Sabres have signed Nathan Gerbe to a three year contract. Gerbe will make the rookie maximum (a bit under $1 million a season). While he will not be guaranteed a spot on the team, he has a shot at making it, and will get at least a little playing time at some point in the season.

Gerbe is very good, and if he can manage to make the opening night roster has a very legitimate shot of winning the NHL's rookie of the year award. While he won't be expected to carry the team in the same way that Kane and Toews have been asked to this past season in Chicago, he could very well be one of the Sabres top offensive players next year.

This past year at Boston College, Gerbe lead his team to victory in the Frozen Four, and had five goals himself in the final two games of the tournament. In fact he made it to the finals in all three of his years at Boston College (his team took second the other two years), so this guy knows how to win, and is used to winning, which is a good thing.

I've only seen him play in three games, but he was excellent in all of them, and the only argument against him ever is his size. However, while nobody while be confusing him with Chara, Gerbe is no smaller than Roy, and his size has not been an issue. Along with players like Briere, Buffalo has never had a problem with bringing in smaller players, and has never been one of the larger teams in the league so Gerbe should have no problem fitting in.

Nathan Gerbe leads Boston College to Victory

Nathan Gerbe picked up another two goals to lead Boston College to the NCAA Frozen Four Championship victory. Notre Dame hadn't been expected to win a single game, but then made it all the way to the final two before finally losing. Boston College was all around the better team, and was able to dominate the game.

The best thing about is that Nathan Gerbe is lined up to become a Sabre. He was a fifth round draft choice in 2005, and could very well end up one of the teams best selections. In the final two games of the NCAA tournament, he had five goals, and a handful of assists. He was a final three Hobey Baker finalist, and was named the NCAA playoff tournament's "Most outstanding player". He still has one more year of college eligibility left, but he looks to be good enough to crack the NHL lineup if he wants to come next season. If the Sabres have any strength it's that they know how to draft.

Also in the NHL, the refs went a bit out of their way to hand the game to Montreal. In the final 7:10 of regulation and the first 1:31 of overtime the refs called ten minutes of penalties against Boston. Not only did they call ten minutes worth of penalties in under nine minutes, but they called nothing against Montreal, and some of the calls made were rather weak. Montreal of course has the best powerplay in the league, and while it took them a while this time, given that much five on four, and even a few short five on threes, even the Sabres powerplay would have found a way to win that game. The final penalty was pretty weak to begin with. Calling that when in overtime of a playoff game when Boston is already a man down is insane.