Sabres’ Bowen Byram day-to-day; Mattias Samuelsson week-to-week with injuries
Buffalo Sabres head coach Lindy Ruff provided several injury updates on Monday after practice, with their blueline particularly suffering.
Updates from Lindy Ruff:
Byram is day to day, was injured during the game Saturday. Might skate on his own tomorrow.
Kulich will practice tomorrow.
Samuelsson reaggravated an injury, is week to week.
Greenway is progressing, hope is he'll rejoin practice sometime next week.
The biggest news is in regards to defenseman Bowen Byram, who is day-to-day with an undisclosed injury that he sustained during Saturday’s 5-2 win over the Detroit Red Wings. What caused the injury is not known, but based on the timeline, he should be good to return to the lineup by the time Buffalo begins their regular season next Thursday, and him and the team will just be cautious with preseason action in the meantime.
Byram is coming off of his best season so far in his NHL career, as he put up seven goals and 31 assists for 38 points. After being the subject of trade rumors all summer, he signed a two-year contract with a $6.25 million cap hit to return with the Sabres. He has one goal and one assist for two points in two preseason games thus far.
The most impactful announcement in terms of the regular season is that defenseman Mattias Samuelsson will be out on a week-to-week basis while recovering from an upper-body-injury. Samuelsson had been dealing with the injury for a few days after last Tuesday’s 2-1 win over the Columbus Blue Jackets, although there had been no confirmation about how severe it was until Monday.
While Samuelsson continued to struggle with injuries last season, he did manage to set a career high in games played and points in 2024-25 with four goals and 10 assists for 14 points in 62 games. He was held pointless in his lone preseason game before the injury.
The Sabres did get some good news on the injury front, as both Jiri Kulich and Jordan Greenway are close to returning to practice. Kulich, who’s been day-to-day with an undisclosed injury after last Monday’s 4-0 win over the Blue Jackets, will practice on Tuesday, while Greenway, who’s missed all of training camp rehabbing after a core surgery, should be rejoining sometime next week.
The Sabres will resume preseason action on Wednesday when they host the Pittsburgh Penguins at 7 p.m. EST. They are currently 3-1-0 after four exhibition matches.