Ennis day-to-day for Sabres, won't play vs. Bruins

by Joe Yerdon

BUFFALO -- The Buffalo Sabres will be shorthanded when they host the Boston Bruins at First Niagara Center on Wednesday.

Coach Ted Nolan announced center Tyler Ennis will be out of the lineup with general body soreness.

"He's day-to-day, so he won't be in the lineup tonight," Nolan said. "Hopefully it's nothing too serious, just a day-to-day thing, so we'll be good."

Ville Leino will take Ennis' spot on the top line between Matt Moulson and Drew Stafford, and there's a possibility forward Zenon Konopka could re-enter the lineup. Konopka had surgery on his left pinky finger during the Olympic break and was held out of the game Tuesday aganst the Carolina Hurricanes as a precaution.

"That's going to be the question mark with whether he's ready to go," Nolan said. "We'll see how he is tonight. If he's ready to go, we'll go with four lines and six defensemen."

Konopka said he was ready to play, but Nolan will have the final say whether he's in or not. Defenseman Henrik Tallinder will return to the lineup after sitting out Tuesday to recover from the Olympics.

Jhonas Enroth will start in goal for Buffalo. Ryan Miller stopped 36 shots and had two assists against Carolina.

The Bruins head into their first game following the break looking to extend their lead in the Atlantic Division. With a number of players who competed in the Olympics on the roster, they're ready to start the push for the playoffs.

"We've got a lot of guys that haven't played in over two weeks," Bruins coach Claude Julien said. "We're certainly happy to be back at work and ready to play our first game."

One player who won't factor into the game for Boston is goalie Tuukka Rask, whom Julien gave the night off to continue recovering from the Olympics. Rask helped Finland win a bronze medal.

"It developed depending on what was going to happen to Finland," Julien said. "If they had been eliminated early probably Tuukka would've been back. Whether he would've played tonight, I don't know, we hadn't made that decision yet, but he probably would've been on the trip. Not playing tonight and coming back late, it was important for him to get that rest."

Chad Johnson will start in goal and Niklas Svedberg will back him up.

Forward Loui Eriksson used the Olympics to get him back into a better rhythm after missing 20 games with two concussions.

"I thought it really helped me to go [to the Olympics] and play a lot," Eriksson said. "They're fun games to play, too, when you get the quarters and semifinals. They're important games. I'll take a lot of things from that and go on forward."

Here are the projected lineups:

BRUINS

Milan Lucic – David Krejci – Jarome Iginla

Brad Marchand – Patrice Bergeron – Reilly Smith

Chris Kelly – Carl Soderberg – Loui Eriksson

Daniel Paille – Gregory Campbell – Shawn Thornton

Zdeno Chara – Dougie Hamilton

Matt Bartkowski – Johnny Boychuk

Torey Krug – Kevan Miller

Chad Johnson

Niklas Svedberg

Scratched: Tuukka Rask, Jordan Caron