@boosbuzzsabres
Renaud Lavoie of TVA Sports reported three Buffalo Sabres on his list of NHL players waived by NHL teams. According to Lavoie, forwards Justin Bailey and Nicholas Baptiste, along with defenseman Matt Tennyson were waived by the team. No official announcement has been made.
With those moves the Sabres now have 16 forwards on the roster including injured players Johan Larsson and Sean Malone. The forward lineup has:
Jack Eichel, Kyle Okposo, Jeff Skinner, Jason Pominville, Patrik Berglund, Sam Reinhart, Vladimir Sobotka, Conor Sheary (who was injured but has begun skating,) Zemgus Girgensons, Scott Wilson, Tage Thompson, Casey Mittelstadt, Evan Rodrigues, and Alexander Nylander.
The Tennyson move allows for rookie free agent Lawrence Pilut to stay with the club as Buffalo's d-corps has Rasmus Ristolainen, Zach Bogosian (injured,) Marco Scandella, Nathan Beaulieu, Matt Hunwick (injured,) Jake McCabe, Rasmus Dahlin and Casey Nelson.
Bailey and Baptiste both were drafted in 2013 (2nd and 3rd rounds, respectively) and had similar roads to this point. Both finished junior and skated for the Rochester Americans (Bailey 159 games, Baptiste 157) and had ample time to make an impression with the big club (Bailey 52 games for Buffalo, Baptiste 47.)
The duo were supposed to put Buffalo in a very difficult situation during training camp as neither would be waiver-exempt and it was thought that the Sabres might want to keep one or both and send down a waiver-exempt player or two. Unfortunately neither made an impresson this preseason despite their speed. Buffalo decided to keep Nylander, who had an excellent camp and Thompson, who looked real good for stretches. They also kept young vet Girgensons over both Bailey and Baptiste.
The probability factor that each player might get claimed leans more towards yes, but with a long list of players being waived as teams get ready to finalize their rosters one or both might slip through.
As for Tennyson, he's been through this movie before. Although Sabres head coach Phil Housley said he like a lot of what Tennyson brought to the table, Pilut, who is waivers-exempt, had too good a camp to deny.
The Sabres are off today and will resume practice tomorrow.
*****
For those of us who weren't in Oshawa, Ontario for last night's Sabres/NY Islanders game, Buffalo defeated NY 5-4 to finish preseason with a win.
Highlights from the game have been very slow to surface but Sabres.com finally released them. Girgensons, Nelson, Dahlin and Skinner (2) all scored for Buffalo, which you can view here:
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