With Henrik Tallinder healthy and returning to the Buffalo Sabres' blue line, Teppo Numminen is the odd man out for tonight's game against the New York Rangers.

The Sabres have eight defensemen available, and Numminen and Nathan Paetsch will head to the press box while Tallinder, Toni Lydman, Jaroslav Spacek, Chris Butler, Andrej Sekera and Craig Rivet will dress in HSBC Arena.

This is the first time this season the 40-year-old Numminen will be a healthy scratch. He missed six games with a fractured jaw and has one assist and a minus-1 rating in the eight games since his return.

"He's had a couple tough ones," coach Lindy Ruff said today. "We've got eight healthy 'D' here, and we're going to try and find our top six.

"Right now it's about winning. ... We're looking for a little bit more physical edge with Butler in the lineup."

Numminen said he understood he might be the odd man out from time to time this season as he made his comeback from heart surgery.

"I said, "That's fine. You guys say when I play

and when I don't play,' " Numminen said. "I'm fine with that. I expected that it's going to happen at some part of the season. You always want to play. That's why you're here. You're a player and you want to play. But I knew it was going to happen."