{"id":650003,"date":"2026-05-05T20:00:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-05T20:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/650003\/"},"modified":"2026-05-05T20:00:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T20:00:08","slug":"buffalo-sabres-expect-to-welcome-back-center-sam-carrick-for-second-round-series-against-montreal-canadiens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/650003\/","title":{"rendered":"Buffalo Sabres expect to welcome back center Sam Carrick for second-round series against Montreal Canadiens"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph\">BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) \u2014 Sabres centre and faceoff ace Sam Carrick resumed practising on Tuesday, and is in position to return for Buffalo\u2019s second-round playoff series against the Montreal Canadiens.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Coach Lindy Ruff anticipated Carrick will be back in the lineup soon, without providing a timetable by saying: \u201cOnce you\u2019re cleared to practice, you\u2019re within days of playing.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The Sabres host Montreal in Game 1 on Wednesday night, followed by Game 2 on Friday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Carrick wrenched his left arm during a fight with Islanders captain Anders Lee in the third period of Buffalo\u2019s 4-3 win on March 31. He missed the final seven regular-season games and Buffalo\u2019s six-game first-round series win over Boston.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Carrick\u2019s return is considered ahead of schedule, and comes after he met with team doctors on Monday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The Sabres acquired the 10th-year player in a trade with the New York Rangers on March 5. Carrick immediately took over as Buffalo\u2019s fourth-line centre, and has handled key faceoffs, especially in late-game situations in the Sabres defensive zone.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">He won 82 of 143 faceoffs for Buffalo. The Sabres entered Tuesday ranked last among 16 playoff teams in winning 43.8% of their faceoffs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Ruff previously ruled out rookie centre Noah Ostlund (lower left leg) for Round 2.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">___<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">AP NHL: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/stanley-cup and https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/nhl<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) \u2014 Sabres centre and faceoff ace Sam Carrick resumed practising on Tuesday, and is in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":650004,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":["post-650003","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650003","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=650003"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650003\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/650004"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=650003"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=650003"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=650003"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}