Kanata, ON (WGR 550) -- Patrick Lalime gets his first start in three weeks in his old stomping grounds, Ottawa. It didn't go well last year for him here when he made his first appearance in Ottawa since leaving. Lalime gave up six goals on 36 shots. Ryan Miller gets a rest after five straight starts. Lalime said this morning that his groin is totally healed and he's ready to go. He also is excited about getting another start in Ottawa, "Of course, looking forward to coming back here and I'll just play my game the way I can."
Lindy Ruff said Drew Stafford's bone bruise is still to sore to go. He's dressing Andrej Sekera and will play either him or Steve Montador at forward. Sekera told me he's never played forward before, but is willing to do it. One thing Ruff hates and won't do is rotate seven defensemen, "That's too disruptive so we'll use one of those guys up front and if it works, it works. If not, we'll just go with 11 forwards and one defenseman will spot in and out."
The Sabres got three wins last week and pulled away a little in the Northeast Division, but one point in two games this week has Boston two behind the first place Sabres, but Buffalo has three games in hand. The Sabres are even in games with Ottawa and the lead's been cut to three, Buffalo is ahead of Montreal by four points with three games in hand.
Thomas Vanek was back on the penalty kill last night against the Bruins and by far was Buffalo's best player outside of Miller. He embraced the role, showed desperation and even had a good scoring chance shorthanded. As impressed as Lindy Ruff was, he still thinks he should get that no matter what Vanek's role is, "I don't look at the as a firing point I think you should be able to play whether you're on the penalty killing or not or the power play or not." Vanek has just one goal in seven games and two in 12. He's minus five in his last four games. Before that he had only one minus game all season.
For the Sens Shean Donavan is out after a knee on knee hit last game. He has a torn MCL and maybe ACL. Shot blocking machine Anton Volchenkov has missed nine games with elbow problem. Alexei Kovalev is in Russia for the funeral of his mother in law. Kovalev picked up in Ottawa right where he left off in Montreal, a lazy, uninspired player. He has no goals in eight games and one in 12. Ten points in 19 games for a player with that kind of talent is embarrassing. The Sens should've known better. They saw him six times a year against the Canadiens. Nice job on blowing five million of salary cap on him. Daniel Alfredsson kills the Sabres with 33 goals and 71 points in 71 games. Alfredsson is slumping right now with no goals in six games and one goal in nine. Mike Fisher has five points in his last two games, Jason Spezza is pointless in six. The Sabres did a great job of making rookie Brian Elliott look like an all star last year. He was 4-0 vs Buffalo with a 1.97 goals against and .924 save percentage. He's only played five games this year with Pascal Leclaire getting most of the work. While playing in Columbus Leclaire faced Buffalo twice winning both times. His goals against was 0.50 with a .983 save percentage. Leclaire gets the call tonight.
Ottawa is working on two straight wins against Toronto and Pittsburgh.
Buffalo leads the overall series with Ottawa 47-34-13. In their last ten games here the Sabres are just 2-6-2.
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