Jason Zucker is back on the ice, but the Sabres aren’t ready to rush him into the lineup just yet.
The veteran winger, who had offseason surgery, was among the injured Buffalo players on the ice for Thursday’s optional morning skate at KeyBank Center as the Sabres prepared to face the Dallas Stars in the third game of their five-game homestand. Buffalo is also expected to have Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen start in goal after Colten Ellis opened Tuesday’s 3-2 overtime win over the Minnesota Wild.
Zucker said he feels good skating, but stressed that the focus remains on strength and timing rather than a quick return.
" I'm progressing, making sure that it's getting strong enough, going up the way it needs to. I feel good on the ice, feels where it needs to be.”
Zucker said. “We're making sure that we are sticking to the timeline and the plan that we put together, and then, we have some stuff in the back of our mind that we're looking at, but it's a very soft date at this point."
The 34-year-old forward scored 24 goals last season, though he also missed 20 games and didn’t produce at the same level in the playoffs. His surgery didn’t happen until early August, which kept him out of training camp and the preseason. Even so, Zucker made it clear he isn’t interested in cutting corners just to get back sooner.
"Luckily or unluckily.... I've done this far too many times throughout my career.
I know that rushing it never works out in your favor. You're always going to come back.
You're going to feel it within a couple of games. You're going to go backwards," Zucker said.
"It's just kind of understanding that it's part of the healing process. You need to stick to the timeline and make sure that it's 100% T here's certain things you can play through at 80 or 90%.
Then there's other things, t ypically post-surgeries, you have to get back to 100% before you're going to come back and play."
Buffalo also had goalie Alex Lyon on the ice Thursday morning.
On the practice side, head coach Lindy Ruff kept the forward combinations he used in the third period against Minnesota. Jiri Kulich and Peyton Krebs were skating with Tage Thompson, while Josh Norris was moved down in the lineup after Ruff’s in-game shakeup.
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