The Buffalo Sabres announced today that C/LW Paul Gaustad had surgery to repair a ligment in his right thumb. Goose prevailing wisdom was that he injured it when he jumped Marc-Andre Bergeron after Bergeron submarined Danny Paille bruising Paille's thigh in the process in Monday's exhibition game against Minnesota. That's apparently not the case according to Lindy Ruff.
"It's not something he could play through," head coach Lindy Ruff said. "It was something that came up...When we had the MRI yesterday, it was found he needed to have it operated on."
It was originally thought that Gaustad injured his thumb while taking on Marc-Andre Bergeron after the Minnesota forward laid a hit on Daniel Paille. But according to Ruff, it wasn't during the fight, but in the previous shift that Gaustad claims he hurt it.
Among the many issues surrounding the Sabres to start this season are their depth at center, on-ice leadership and toughness. Gaustad provides all of that and a whole lot more. This will be the first big test of this group in how they deal with him not being in the lineup. This is yet another example of why the NHL's pre-season schedule this year is monumemtally stupid. 20 days of camp with 7.4 games per team
Where's the training portion of training camp?
Anyways, the Sabres and Wild can renew hostilities (please no!) tomorrow as the home and home switches to Minneapolis.
With Adam Mair still recouperating from off-season knee surgery this paves the way for the Sabres to retain The Kaleta Missile Crisis in camp for the opening night roster. It also gives guys like Clarke MacArthur, Marek Zagrapan and Mark Mancari a little more room to show their stuff through the end of camp and make their case. That is not the case for 13 other players as the Sabres trimmed their roster today as well, sending, among others 1st round pick Tyler Myers and Phillipe Gogulla back to their resepctive clubs, Myers to Kelowna of the WHL and Gogulla to the German Elite League
Ta,
