BOSTON – There was lots going on as the Sabres hit the ice for practice Friday afternoon in TD Garden.
Rochester Amerks coach Seth Appert led the practice but the team got some good news right before the workout with word that interim head coach Don Granato and interim assistant Matt Ellis have both cleared Covid-19 protocol.
Granato and Ellis were both held out of Thursday's 4-0 loss in Pittsburgh and General Manager Kevyn Adams stepped behind the bench for the shutout defeat that extended the franchise-record winless streak to 16 games.
The big news on the player front was the absence of veteran center Eric Staal, the subject of many trade rumors heading into the April 12 NHL trade deadline. Staal was traded later in the day to the Montreal Canadiens for 2021 third- and fifth-round draft picks.
Kyle Okposo (upper body) and Tage Thompson (illness) returned to practice. Okposo has missed all three games on this road trip and Thompson has sat for the last two.
The lines at practice were set this way:
Olofsson-Sheahan-Cozens
Hall-Dea-Reinhart
Mittelstadt-Lazar-Skinner
Fogarty-Eakin-Smith
Thompson-Murray-Okposo
On defense, it was Bryson-Ristolainen, Dahlin-Jokiharju, Montour-Miller. The goalies were Linus Ullmark, Dustin Tokarski, Michael Houser and Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen.
The team said Granato and Ellis will join the club here later Friday. The Sabres have their first meeting of the season in Boston with the Bruins in TD Garden at 1 p.m. Saturday. The Bruins are coming off Thursday's 4-3 overtime loss to the New York Islanders and coach Bruce Cassidy put them through a rare double practice session earlier Friday.
That's probably not good news for the Sabres, who are 0-5-1 in their last six games against the Bruins. Boston won the first meeting of the season, 4-1, on March 18 in KeyBank Center. The teams' March 20 game was postponed when five Bruins went on the Covid protocol list.
Appert ran the workout along with interim assistant Dan Girardi, video coach Myles Fee and skating development coach Mike Ansell.
