TAMPA – The injury epidemic continues to spread through the Buffalo Sabres' defense and it has now struck the club's most dominant player.
Rasmus Dahlin will miss Saturday night's game against the Tampa Bay Lightning due to an upper-body injury, the club announced about 90 minutes before faceoff in Amalie Arena. Dahlin is listed as day to day and becomes the fourth member of the Buffalo blueline out with an injury.
Coach Don Granato declined to go into specifics on the injury during his pregame media briefing but a source confirmed it occurred Friday night in Carolina during the first-period confrontation Dahlin had with Hurricanes forward Jasperi Kotkaniemi. The pair, who were drafted Nos. 1 and 3 in the 2018 NHL draft, broke away from the pack of a scrum and briefly went 1-on-1, with Kotkaniemi connecting with a gloved right hand to Dahlin's face before officials could break them up.
People are also reading…
Dahlin played the rest of the game apparently unaffected and scored his seventh goal of the season with one-tenth of a second left in the third period but was unavailable to the media afterwards. The Sabres said Dahlin was in the trainers' room getting medical attention. And while that's not altogether unusual for a player to have a brief check-in, it probably spoke to how much Dahlin was beat up after the contest.
The Sabres fell to 7-4 in the opener of their road back-to-back set.
Dahlin has seven goals and eight assists in 11 games this season while playing 25 minutes, 53 seconds per game. He played 26:58 in the 5-3 loss to the Hurricanes, collecting a career-high eight shots on goal and 11 attempts while also blocking three shots. He's second in the league among defensemen in points and fifth in ice time.
"It's certainly tough not to have Rasmus obviously with what he's done," Granato said. "But you're playing a game (against Tampa) in an unbelievable building against a not-too-former Stanley Cup champion and that's exciting. I think our guys have to embrace that excitement and challenge. Injuries happen. It's an opportunity for us to find a little bit more about ourselves and specific players in different roles."
The Sabres are without Dahlin, Mattias Samuelsson (knee) and Henri Jokiharju (facial fracture). Ilya Lyubushkin (lower body) returned to the Buffalo lineup to replace Dahlin after sitting out the last four games.
"This is why you sign extra guys over the summer, for these moments," Granato said. "Unfortunately, we've had a barrage of injuries specifically to the defensive group which is a little bit uncanny but you just deal with it."
Dahlin's injury undoubtedly means even more opportunities for rookie Owen Power, who leads all NHL rookies in ice time at 22:41 per game. Power arrived to join the Sabres in April in Tampa from the University of Michigan and took a morning skate with the team but didn't play in the game against the Lightning that night. He made his debut two nights later in Toronto.
"It is truly amazing how much work he can take on at his age in that position," Granato said of Power, who played 24:43 in Carolina. "It's amazing. He makes very few mistakes and certainly doesn't make the same mistake with any consistency. ... He's not consumed by any great stresser. That's an indication of high talent and knowledge of the game, hockey sense, situational awareness."
As the Sabres announce their new reverse retro jerseys, check out the sweaters that have been worn by the team over the years.
