Hutton optimistic following Monday's practice

Carter Hutton was back on the ice for practice with the Buffalo Sabres on Monday, skating for the second day in a row. The goaltender's status for Buffalo's game against Los Angeles on Tuesday has not been determined, but his recovery from an upper-body injury is trending in the right direction.

"We're going to kind of see," Hutton said. "The skate went well today and that's all. Right now, we're just going to go with that. We'll see how tonight goes."

Sabres coach Phil Housley said he expects Hutton to be ready to play at some point this week.
Hutton has already developed a reputation as having a knack for looking at the big picture during his short time in Buffalo. He offered a practical assessment of the Sabres' current situation after practice.
"I think you've just got to stay in the grind," Hutton said. "It's kind of one of those things. You win a bunch of games and things are just rolling. It seems like it's easy, but it wasn't easy. It was really hard. All those games we won were really tough, I think we've just got to get back into the grind of it, appreciate how hard it is to win in the league and the parity in this league.
"If you take a few minutes off, teams will make you pay. I think it's something that we have to embrace a little more in here, just the grind of it, and get back to what we were doing to win those tight games."
The Sabres didn't look like a team winless in its last five games on Monday. Practice was vocal, the pace was high, and players were in good spirits afterward. It was the response they wanted after holding a team meeting on Sunday to address their 6-2 loss to Philadelphia.
"There's no reason to get negative," Hutton said. "We're still in a really great place. Obviously winning games and banking points is important. We could've not had such a great month of November, but we did. We move forward. I think the attitude in here has been great.
"Everybody's upbeat and they're excited for tomorrow. We're going to have a good challenge here."
The Sabres have lacked secondary scoring as of late, with 10 of their 12 goals over the last five games coming from their top line of Jeff Skinner, Jack Eichel and Sam Reinhart. Housley has allowed his forwards to work through it, leaving the top lines unchanged while making minor tweaks to the bottom six.
Here's how the lineup looked on Monday, with Tage Thompson swapping lines with Evan Rodrigues:
53 Jeff Skinner - 9 Jack Eichel - 23 Sam Reinhart
43 Conor Sheary - 37 Casey Mittelstadt - 21 Kyle Okposo
72 Tage Thompson - 17 Vladimir Sobotka - 29 Jason Pominville
71 Evan Rodrigues - 22 Johan Larsson / 10 Patrik Berglund - 28 Zemgus Girgensons
26 Rasmus Dahlin - 4 Zach Bogosian
24 Lawrence Pilut - 55 Rasmus Ristolainen
82 Nathan Beaulieu - 5 Matt Tennyson
48 Matt Hunwick - 81 Remi Elie*
40 Carter Hutton
35 Linus Ullmark
31 Scott Wedgewood
"Obviously, these guys want to contribute and be a bigger part and sometimes it doesn't happen," Housley said. "If we can continue to check and play away from the puck better, I think they'll have opportunities with it. We got away from that last game."

The Sabres did make notable changes on the power play, where they're now 1-for-14 over their last six games. Housley put both of his Rasmi on the top unit, with Rasmus Ristolainen manning the point and Rasmus Dahlin on the right flank. Eichel, Skinner and Reinhart rounded out the group of five.
Rookie Lawrence Pilut was added to the second unit, which also consisted of Kyle Okposo at the net-front, Conor Sheary in the middle, Evan Rodrigues on the right flank and Casey Mittelstadt rotating with Tage Thompson on the left.
"Power play, that's part of our secondary scoring too," Housley said. "Obviously, we've struggled a little bit. I think we've got to simplify that. But putting some guys in some different spots, we've tried to get as many looks [as possible] with guys playing on the flanks, getting a feel for it."
Coverage of Buffalo's game against Los Angeles on Tuesday begins at 6:30 p.m. with the GMC Game Night pregame show on MSG-B, or you can listen live on WGR 550. The puck drops at 7.