Raffi Torres hit town late Wednesday night and was on the ice at practice Thursday

morning. He joked that he's already dropped about $5,000 on tickets for friends and family from Toronto for his debut with the Buffalo Sabres tonight against the Philadelphia Flyers in HSBC Arena.

Such is life when you're part of a trade in the NHL at the infamous March deadline.

Goodbye, Columbus. Hello, Buffalo. And nice of you to come to town and immediately take over a struggling team's lead in goals.

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• Audio/video: Hear Torres speak and watch him skate



• Sabres Edge blog: The team's new lines



• Live chat: Review Bucky Gleason's hockey discussion

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"Hopefully I can come in here, help out, pitch in along the way and hopefully liven it up around here," Torres said following his first Buffalo workout Thursday in the arena.

Torres, who will be wearing No. 17, had a whirlwind first day with the Sabres going through equipment checks prior to practice, moving into the departed Clarke MacArthur's locker and then seeing a rugged up-tempo Lindy Ruff practice first hand.

There were times the 28-year-old stepped out of drills to get extra help from assistant coach James Patrick, who brought him to the wipe board hanging on the glass for a quick crash course in the Sabres' system.

Torres will initially start on a line with Derek Roy and Jason Pominville after Ruff mixed up his forwards in the wake of Wednesday's 3-1 snoozer against the Washington Capitals.

Even though Torres had 19 goals in Columbus, he was only averaging about 13 minutes a game of ice time. He said he's prepared for more.

"I got a nice taste of it today," Torres said. "Roysie and Pominville are highly skilled

with a lot of speed. I'm going to have to make sure I'm in the right zone spot and not get lost out there. Keep my legs under me and not try to do too much."



Roy played against Torres for three years in the Ontario Hockey League while Roy was with Kitchener and Torres was with Brampton. Roy said Torres' game remains the same.

"He works hard, gets in the corners and he's a big guy (6-foot, 216 pounds) with a hard shot," Roy said. "He's got some speed and with Pommer and him, it should be a good line."



"We've seen him play and we know what he can do," said Ruff. "He's a big, strong kid with a great shot. It may take a little bit of time. It may take time to breed a little bit of familiarity."



In addition to Roy centering Torres and Pominville, Ruff arranged his other lines this way Thursday: Tim Connolly between Thomas Vanek and Drew Stafford, Tim Kennedy centering Mike Grier and Jochen Hecht in a line that began the season together and Matt Ellis centering Adam Mair and Patrick Kaleta.

"I'm not going to guess how good we're going to be with those," Ruff said. "You put pieces together. You put Tim Connolly with two good goal scorers. Derek is obviously a very creative guy with a couple guys who can score goals.



"And the Kennedy line was a good line for us, a shutdown line we can use in any situation. We'll go back to that line."



Torres, who scored 27 goals for Edmonton in 2005-06 when they advanced to the Stanley Cup finals, had 31 points but was a minus-8 this year for the Blue Jackets. They were major sellers at the deadline after falling out of the Western Conference race.

Columbus, however, handed the Sabres a 4-0 defeat Feb. 6 and that game is part of Buffalo's current 1-6-2 slide. The Sabres are fifth in the East, six points ahead of the Flyers.



Torres should help infuse some new aggressiveness and another scoring option into the lineup but Ruff cautioned it's unfair to expect him to spark a turnaround on his own.

The team's incumbent core has to bear that responsibility and Ruff planned a meeting with several players later Thursday.

"I'm just trying to go out, be physical, get some goals and be positive in any way I can," Torres said. "I don't want to disrupt the room. I want to be a good asset to them here."