Amherst, NY (WGR 550) -- Thomas Vanek was back at practice full go trying to get back for Wednesday in Florida. He was on his regular line with Derek Roy and Drew Stafford at the Pepsi Center. The winger was a little disappointed with how he feels, "It felt OK, I thought it was going to feel a little bit better after a weekend off, but it's still not quite there yet. The good thing is the game is not until Wednesday so practice is OK, but hopefully it will be better." Lindy Ruff had good pace in practice with a lot of competing. Vanek looked good, but Ruff said, "I wanted him to stay away from the real hard stuff, I was yelling at him in drills not to go too hard. We hopefully want him ready for Wednesday, he looks pretty good and we'll see how he reacts to the drills tomorrow."
Clarke MacArthur did travel with the team to Fort Lauderdale, but he was sent home from practice with the flu. MacArthur has started the season well scoring four goals and two assists. Ruff said, "It's maturity, he's stronger, he has more endurance in his game but I think you point to maturity. There a level of maturity where he understands how hard he has to work, he's got to make it hurt when he feels tired and you see that in his shifts now. I think he's been our best player, he's been our best competitor and that's something he can be pretty proud of from where he was at last year."
Matt Ellis was back at practice after missing Saturday's game with a contusion.
Ruff said Andrej Sekera is still a ways away.
The reason the team left early and will stay in Fort Lauderdale until Friday is to get some time together. Last year Lindy Ruff took the team out to play paintball and he's says he has an activity scheduled for this trip too, "We really only have one day where we're planning on giving them a real light day on Thursday. We're going at it normal tomorrow and then there's the game and then Thursday's the day we plan on going real light with a team activity."
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