{"id":204357,"date":"2025-10-11T04:22:13","date_gmt":"2025-10-11T04:22:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/204357\/"},"modified":"2025-10-11T04:22:13","modified_gmt":"2025-10-11T04:22:13","slug":"snapshots-sabres-injuries-plattner-blackwood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/204357\/","title":{"rendered":"Snapshots: Sabres Injuries, Plattner, Blackwood"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Buffalo Sabres didn\u2019t have an ideal start to their 2024-25 campaign last night, suffering a 4-0 defeat at the hands of the New York Rangers. But perhaps even more worrying than the final scoreline was an injury suffered late in the game by first-line center Josh Norris<\/a>. Today, the Sabres issued an update<\/a> on Norris\u2019 status, as well as the status of other key injured Sabres in advance of their game Saturday in Boston.\u00a0According to the Sabres, Norris \u201cis being evaluated and is not expected to play tomorrow,\u201d while Zach Benson<\/a> is confirmed to not be playing tomorrow, and Owen Power<\/a>, who has been out with an illness, is hopeful to return for tomorrow\u2019s game.<\/p>\n

The key storyline here involves Norris, as his health has been a persistent nagging issue throughout his NHL career. Norris has undergone three surgeries on his left shoulder since 2019, and his shoulder issues have caused him to miss significant time, such as in the 2022-23 season when he got into just eight total games. The Sabres have classified the injury as \u201cupper-body,\u201d so we don\u2019t know for sure at this stage if the injury has anything to do with Norris\u2019 shoulder, but nonetheless it\u2019s certainly not a positive development that Norris is already facing bad injury luck so early in what is a hugely important season for himself and the Sabres as a whole.<\/p>\n

Other notes from around the league:<\/p>\n

San Jose Sharks owner Hasso Plattner spoke to the media about the Sharks in person yesterday, something notable as according to San Jose Hockey Now\u2019s Sheng Peng, Plattner has not held such a media availability \u201cin perhaps a decade.\u201d Plattner spoke on various topics, expressing optimism about the direction of the Sharks and explaining in more detail the thought process behind some of the franchise\u2019s bigger recent decisions. He also spoke about past regrets, specifically naming the loss of Joe Pavelski to the Dallas Stars and the team trading the eventual No. 3 overall pick (which became Tim Stutzle<\/a>) to the Ottawa Senators as two of his biggest regrets in this recent era of Sharks hockey. Now led by 2024 No. 1 pick Macklin Celebrini<\/a> and a prospect pool ranked among the league\u2019s best by public outlets, it appears Plattner\u2019s optimism for the future is well-founded.
\nAlthough Colorado Avalanche netminder Mackenzie Blackwood<\/a> practiced with the team today as he continues his push to return to full health, Avalanche head coach Jared Bednar told the media (including the Denver Gazette\u2019s Evan Rawal<\/a>) that Blackwood still isn\u2019t quite fully ready and is questionable to travel with the team on its upcoming road trip. It does appear Blackwood isn\u2019t too far off, though, and Bednar did reveal the team is considering potentially sending Blackwood out on a conditioning stint with their AHL affiliate as an option to help him get back up to full speed. Blackwood, once healthy, is expected to be the Avalanche\u2019s undisputed No. 1 goalie. He posted a .913 save percentage in 37 games last season and is under contract at a $5.25MM AAV through the 2029-30 season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Buffalo Sabres didn\u2019t have an ideal start to their 2024-25 campaign last night, suffering a 4-0 defeat…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":204358,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[741,49,48,758,100182,76227,448,76528,764,7587,82,96713],"class_list":["post-204357","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-buffalo-sabres","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-colorado-avalanche","tag-joshua-norris","tag-mackenzie-blackwood","tag-nhl","tag-owen-power","tag-san-jose-sharks","tag-snapshots","tag-sports","tag-zach-benson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204357","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=204357"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204357\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/204358"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=204357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=204357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=204357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}