Buffalo, N.Y. (WGR 550) – Tage Thompson returned to practice for the Buffalo Sabres on Tuesday, as he, once again, centered Jeff Skinner and Alex Tuch.
The Sabres center missed practice on Monday, but didn’t really want to talk too much about it.
“It was good to get a little rest and to get back out there with the guys,” said Thompson on Tuesday.
Sabres head coach Don Granato said Monday that Thompson had been dealing with a nagging injury. Thompson says it was something that happened in Saturday’s game against the Minnesota Wild.
When you play 13 games in 22 days, you would expect fatigue to show. The team looked good against the Wild, but Thompson admitted they did have to play through being tired.
“There’s definitely fatigue. That’s a lot of games in a short amount of time, so obviously we’re going to be really tired," the 25-year-old said. "But I think when that happens, you’ve got to be able to play smart and efficient. I think that’s what we’ve done by making the game easy on ourselves, by not exerting extra energy. That’s coming from playing simple and making sure we’re not doing dumb things with the puck and having to defend, which will exhaust you.”
As this season has progressed, the Sabres do a good job of getting to their identity in games quicker and with more ease.
“As a team, we know when we’re at our best and what makes us successful," Thompson said. "It’s easy that when we aren’t playing good, we can look at ourselves in the mirror and look around the room and say, ‘This is our standard, and this is where we need to be and where we need to get to.’ So it allows us to get to our game quicker.”
Midway through Saturday's game, Granato switched up the lines. However, things were back to normal on Tuesday:
Forwards:
Girgensons – Krebs – Okposo
Skinner – Thompson – Tuch
Mittelstadt – Jost – Olofsson
Peterka – Cozens – Quinn
Asplund
Defense:
Samuelsson – Dahlin
Power – Jokiharju
Bryson – Lyubushkin
Clague
