Buffalo, NY (WGR 550) - The last game Jordan Greenway played was March 23 in Winnipeg. He had surgery last season which limited him to 34 games. In the off season, he still had pain so he had to have the same surgery over again and is just getting back on the ice for practice. Like Josh Norris and Mattias Samuelsson, Greenway is a player that just can’t seem to stay healthy.
The winger set a career high in games his rookie season with the Minnesota Wild with 81. Since then he has played 67, 56, 62, 62, 67 and 34 games. That means he’s only been able to play just over 74% of his team’s games in his seven year career.
Greenway has been around, but it’s hard to feel part of a team when you’re not on the ice with the guys. The winger said being around his buddies and teammates on the ice means the world,
“I enjoyed it tremendously. Those rehab skates by yourself can start getting pretty lonely.”
I spoke to Greenway right before the Sabres played the Ottawa Senators and won, but he has very good perspective whether the record is 0-3-0 like it was then or 1-3-0 like it is now,
“It’s tough because it’s easy to hit the panic button, so it looks terrible, but probably every team in the league will lose three in a row at some point this season, we just happened to do it at the beginning of the season, so there’s no reason for us to be down or call it a season or whatever the case is, you just get ready for tomorrow and then move on to the next day.”
On Friday Greenway was still wearing the yellow sweater, but that’s because he didn’t have a training camp he said,
“I felt great, I’ll get some more practices and we’ll see where we’re at.”
When it comes to injuries, the mental part can be as grueling as the physical. It’s been that was for Greenway,
“There’s been a lot of ups and downs for sure it’s been mentally the most frustrating thing that I’ve been through in my career, but the only thing I can do is go out here and do the rehab and do what I need to do to get back on the ice (in games) and at this point I think I’ve gotten everything fixed, so I’m going to be like ‘The Terminator” when I get back. I don’t know what else could go wrong for me.”
On other injuries, Lindy Ruff said Michael Kesselring is now on the ice doing rehab skates. Mattias Samuelsson was full go in practice and will play on Saturday.
The news wasn’t good on Justin Danforth who couldn’t finish Wednesday’s game. Ruff said he’ll be out a significant amount of time with a lower body injury and said it’ll be more than a month.
Even without Aleksander Barkov and Matthew Tkachuk, the Florida Panthers won their first three games, but Thursday’s 3-1 loss to the New Jersey Devils was their third straight loss to make them 3-3-0.
In six games Brad Marchand is their leading scorer with three goals and three assists for six points. The Panthers and Sabres are tied for 26th in league scoring at 2.50 goal for per game. Florida is 12th in goals against at 2.83 while Buffalo is 22nd at 3.50.
In special teams the Sabres have killed off all but one penalty this season and are third at 93.8%. The Panthers are 7th at 90%. Turning to the power play, Florida is 7th at 25% while Buffalo is 15th at 21.4%.
The Sabres will likely see Sergei Bobrovsky who is 3-1-0 with a 1.77 goals against and .922 save percentage.
Alex Lyon had his own net in practice on Friday which means he’s the likely starter. He’s 1-3-0 with a 3.05 goals against and .912 save percentage.
Join Brian Koziol for the pregame starting at noon when you’ll hear from Ruff, Samuelsson, Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen and Zach Metsa.