The Buffalo Sabres ended their west coast road trip on a sour note, losing 5-1 to the Seattle Kraken on Tuesday night.

The team did, however, win the first three games of the road trip and give fans more hope for this season.

Buffalo is back home to host the Montreal Canadiens at KeyBank Center on Thursday. Sometimes, that first home game from a long road trip is a dud, so the Sabres are hoping to avoid that tonight.

The team was hit with some bad news on the injury front though.

General manager Kevyn Adams announced on Thursday morning that defenseman Mattias Samuelsson will be out "a few weeks" with a lower body injury.

In addition, defenseman Henri Jokiharju will be week-to-week with an upper body injury.

Jokiharju was hit with a puck to the face against the Calgary Flames, so he will miss time with a facial fracture.

As for Samuelsson, he was hurt against the Vancouver Canucks when he landed awkwardly after delivering a hit. The Sabres are thankful his injury wasn't worse, which looked like it could have been season-ending on first glance.

Samuelsson out means that Rasmus Dahlin will have to play without his paired defenseman. Dahlin and Samuelsson were a tremendous pairing because Dahlin was allowed free range to jump into plays, with the defensive style play from Samuelsson.

Jokiharju being out loses some speed on the back end, but this means Lawrence Pilut will get some games for the Sabres now and Pilut's skating is a strong suit.

The next few weeks will be critical to see if the Sabres can sustain their early season success and be a real contender for the playoffs in 2023.

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