Rivet plays tough guy for Sabres
New arrival on ice 20ø minutes Sunday
The Buffalo Sabres needed to add a little more experience on defense over the summer. They certainly needed to inject some more toughness in the backline as well.
Enter Craig Rivet. It looks like he’s the veteran tough guy they needed.
The 34-year-old has seamlessly fit right in to his new team, leading the blueliners with 20z minutes of ice time in Sunday’s 2-1 shootout loss to the Minnesota Wild before a generously announced crowd of 17,311 in HSBC Arena.
The game was marred by a left leg injury suffered by Buffalo winger Daniel Paille with about seven minutes to go in the second period. Paille took a borderline low hit from Wild defenseman Marc-Andre Bergeron and hobbled off with what coach Lindy Ruff termed a bruised thigh.
Bergeron then took a beating from
Paul Gaustad, who rushed to Paille’s defense but jammed his thumb in the process. His X-rays were negative and Ruff said both might be out only a day or two.
Like Gaustad, Rivet stood up for his mates as well in the first period Saturday night with a beatdown of Toronto tough guy Ryan Hollweg. The Sabres were aggravated with Hollweg from Monday’s game in the Air Canada Centre and when he got a little too close to goaltender Ryan Miller on Saturday, Rivet sprung into action.
“That’s just part of the game,” Rivet said, discounting the notion he was trying to make a quick first impression on home ice. “When we’re battling in front of the net, you hear a whistle there’s a few extra jabs and things happen. You just want to protect your goaltender.”
Rivet played parts of 12 years in Montreal and the last two in San Jose. He can be physical but he can go to the net as well with a good shot that should get some use on the power play.
“I’ve watched him in practice, watched him with our young defenseman, I’ve watched his habits,” Ruff said. “He’s a great guy to have around your young players. He’s been through a lot . . . has a great physical nature to him.”
“It’s just a great presence for this team,” added winger Ales Kotalik. “Craig Rivet is an NHL veteran. He proved what kind of player he is in Montreal and San Jose. This is a guy with a great name around the league. This is the position we needed to fill. That’s just an outstanding addition.”
Rivet gives the Sabres another right-handed shot, another hole they wanted to fill.
“He can jump up on offense and play great defense too,” said Jaroslav Spacek. “That’s what we needed. He’s a great guy. He’s really strong and he brings some respect from the other team.”
Rivet, remember, wasn’t real happy to get traded from San Jose when the deal went down in July. But he started to warm to the idea as the summer went on and the reception he’s gotten since training camp started has taken him aback, right from the huge ovation he got when introduced during the team’s third jersey unveiling last weekend.
“It’s been fantastic,” Rivet said. “I’ll tell you, there’s a lot of passion in this city for the game of hockey. You can really see they love their sports, they love their Bills and Sabres. I’m really happy to be part of it right now.
“I hated playing in Buffalo because it was an extremely difficult place to play with the style that they played. They were very aggressive. I’m certainly happy to be part of the team right now.”
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The Sabres fell to 1-2-1 in the preseason with the loss. Jochen Hecht scored the Sabres’ goal 13 seconds into the second period on a Jason Pominville feed after good work behind the net by Clarke MacArthur. The Wild tied it on a fluke goal with 2:57 left as Andrew Brunette’s feed to the slot on a power play went into the net off Spacek.
The Wild won the shootout, 2-1, as it took four rounds to complete. Drew Stafford scored the lone goal for Buffalo while Brunette beat Patrick Lalime for the game-winner. The Sabres had a 29-19 edge in shots and Lalime, their new backup, was sharp for all 65 minutes.
“I thought the team was good tonight,” Ruff said. “I thought we really didn’t give up anything the last 25 minutes except for a tough bounce, which was about the only opportunity they had in that period.”
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The Sabres’ big-name scratches Sunday were Derek Roy, Thomas Vanek, Ales Kotalik, Tim Connolly, Patrick Kaleta, Andrew Peters, Nathan Paetsch, Toni Lydman and Teppo Numminen.
Other than Adam Mair, who has missed the entire preseason with a knee injury, Connolly is the only player who didn’t play in either weekend home game. Connolly is nursing a sore back and was held out as a precaution.
Connolly did, however, practice at full speed both Saturday and Sunday, taking part in the session with the roughly 25 players not dressing for the game. Ruff said he should play this week. The Sabres return to action with a rematch Wednesday at Minnesota.
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South Buffalo native Tim Kennedy and former Boston College star Nathan Gerbe made their home debuts. Kennedy nearly added to Buffalo’s lead in the second period when he moved in alone and had Niklas Backstrom beat with a deke but shot wide.
Backstrom then stopped Kennedy on a Hecht feed with seven seconds left in OT and again on a deke attempt in the shootout.
