One very notable person was missing from the ice this morning when the Sabres did their morning skate at HSBC Arena - Coach Lindy Ruff.

“Yeah maybe he was in the back room breaking down film or something” remarked defenseman Nathan Paetsch.

Ruff’s absence may be checking video, or maybe he’s just trying to shake up the karma. Nonetheless hopefully the Sabres will be doing more than just looking at film when they try to stem the bleeding tonight at HSBC Arena, as the Atlanta Thrashers come to town. The Thrashers got a point last night in a shootout loss at home, and flew into Buffalo late last night. They come in with red hot forwards Ilya Kovalchuk and Marian Hossa, both of who are tearing it up in the scoring column. Last time these two teams met in Atlanta, it was pretty much all Thrashers in a 5-2 win over Buffalo.

One of the players who will be good to go tonight is forward Derek Roy. Asked if he will see regular ice time including power play shifts, Ruff replied “We will see. We will see how it goes. We’ll start it off limited and see where he’s at.” As for defenseman Jaroslav Spacek, he is definitely out for tonight.

Referring to the last game against Atlanta, Ruff commented “We made some pretty big mistakes that allowed them some pretty easy situations. We’ve been able to take away the easy situations since that game and have played a lot better. If you hand them opportunities you are asking for bad things to happen.”

Ruff also stated that there is no more emphasis on this game than the other opponents the team has faced. “We’ve placed emphasis on every game we’ve approached” said Ruff. “For us, we have to win a game.” Nathan Paetsch also stressed the importance of lifting the team with a good outing tonight. “We’re going to be away from here for about three weeks, so leaving on a high note would be huge. Hopefully we will respond.”

Regarding Brendan Shanahan’s hit on Clarke MacArthur in the closing seconds of the Rangers game the other night, Ruff said
“Colin (Campbell) called right after the game, for which I’ve got to give them a lot of credit. They saw the hit. They wanted to know how Clarke is doing.” Beyond that call Ruff has heard nothing further in terms of any sanctions being meted out to Shanahan or the Rangers.

Faceoff tonight is 7:30PM. As of a week ago there were quite a few tickets remaining for this game and the team was pushing heavily on the video board for ticket sales, both on the arena board at last weekend’s Bandits and Sabres games, and on the MSG telecasts. I just checked tickets.com and as of 1PM there are only scattered singles available, so it looks like 18,690 will be the attendance. I’ve got the AV chair tonight and will have a post game recap.

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