Appert - Buffalo Hockey Beat

After slow start, Sabres prospect Arttu Ruotsalainen on tear with Amerks

For five weeks this season, Sabres prospect Arttu Ruotsalainen played short minutes as Buffalo’s fourth-line center, mustering just two goals.

Finally, after the Sabres scratched Ruotsalainen four times over a five-game stretch in November, they sent him back to the AHL, where he began last season.

When Ruotsalainen, 24, arrived in Rochester, Americans coach Seth Appert was surprised at what he saw.

Ruotsalainen had performed like one of the AHL’s elite talents last season, recording ... Read the full article

After change, Sabres prospect Jack Quinn has four-goal game for Amerks

Three days after recording his first hat trick as a pro, Buffalo Sabres prospect Jack Quinn added to his career-best outing for the Rochester Americans.

The AHL on Tuesday credited Quinn with the Amerks’ game-tying goal with four seconds left in regulation in Saturday’s 6-5 overtime loss to the Belleville Senators.

Quinn, 20, is the first Rochester player to have a four-goal game since Derek Whitmore on Nov. 25, 2011. It’s also the AHL’s first ... Read the full article

Sabres goalie Michael Houser beats long odds to return to NHL

BUFFALO – Sabres goalie Michael Houser never stopped preparing for a promotion that seemed less and less likely as the years passed.

Tonight against the Detroit Red Wings, Houser, 29, will likely back up goalie Aaron Dell for the second straight game. The Sabres play four times in a six-day stretch next week, including a back-to-back set, so Houser could be awarded his fifth NHL start.

By last season, his ninth as a pro, it ... Read the full article

Sean Malone has recorded 22 points in 23 games this season for Rochester.

Amerks’ Sean Malone to be sidelined six weeks after undergoing surgery

Rochester Americans center Sean Malone has undergone surgery to repair a lower-body injury and will be sidelined six weeks, coach Seth Appert said.

Malone, having scored nine goals and 22 points in 23 games, is enjoying a career-best season.

“You feel for him,” Appert said on a Zoom call this morning. “I mean, it hurts us because he was a go-to guy, he was a real leader not only in his attitude and his character, ... Read the full article

As Tage Thompson enters COVID-19 protocol, other Sabres close to leaving

BUFFALO – Coach Don Granato knew it would happen again. COVID-19 has been clobbering the NHL, forcing hundreds of players into protocol over the past several weeks, including 11 Sabres.

“When’s it going to happen to the next guy the way it’s going around the league and around the world?” Granato said following Monday’s practice. “It happens today.”

On Monday, shortly after prospect Jack Quinn joined the Sabres, top center Tage Thompson, the team’s leading ... Read the full article

Sabres send three players to Amerks; Casey Mittelstadt ‘excited’ about rehab

BUFFALO – The Sabres on Friday assigned forwards Brett Murray and Ryan MacInnis and defenseman Ethan Prow to the Rochester Americans.

The Sabres don’t play again until Tuesday, while the Amerks hosted the Hartford Wolf Pack on Friday and play a road game against the Syracuse Crunch tonight.

All three played for the Amerks on Friday.

Murray, 23, had made 15 straight appearances with the Sabres. Overall this season, he has played 16 NHL games, ... Read the full article

Sabres add three more players to NHL’s COVID-19 protocol

BUFFALO – Coach Don Granato said dealing with COVID-19 and the chaos it creates has become “almost a new normal.” For two weeks, the virus has been ravaging the Sabres, forcing players and staff members into the NHL’s protocol and five games to be postponed.

On Tuesday, three more players – forward Anders Bjork, Peyton Krebs and Alex Tuch – went into protocol. Granato said the Sabres also held defenseman Henri Jokiharju out of practice ... Read the full article

Sabres’ Ethan Prow never lost belief he would crack NHL someday

BUFFALO – Sabres defenseman Ethan Prow spent much of his 20s toiling in the AHL, posting gaudy numbers and never earning even a cup of coffee in the NHL.

In 2018-19, Prow morphed into one of the league’s elite offensive defensemen, registering 18 goals and 50 points. The next year, after changing organizations, he recorded nine goals and 32 points during a shortened campaign.

A call to the big leagues never materialized, and last season, ... Read the full article

Sabres prospect Jack Quinn nears return to practice with Amerks

Buffalo Sabres prospect Jack Quinn, who recently contracted mono, will likely return to practice in a non-contact role Friday and could play again next weekend, Rochester Americans coach Seth Appert said.

“If everything goes well physically in his reacclimatization to more exercise this weekend and contact at some point next week, I think there’s a chance that maybe next weekend he’s in the lineup,” Appert told the Times Herald.

Appert said Quinn, 20, ... Read the full article

Sabres notes: Matt Ellis debuts against Lindy Ruff, coach he knows best

BUFFALO – Of all the coaches the Sabres’ Matt Ellis could’ve faced in his first game filling in for Don Granato, it turned out to be the one he knows best, Lindy Ruff.

These days, Ruff, 61, coaches the New Jersey Devils, the Sabres’ opponent Wednesday at KeyBank Center.

Ellis, 40, played under Ruff for parts of five seasons, growing from a forward the Sabres plucked off waivers into an NHL regular. ... Read the full article