Sabres place Colten Ellis on injured reserve

The Buffalo Sabres will be short a goaltender for the time being, as they have placed rookie Colten Ellis on injured reserve.

Ellis last appeared when he started Tuesday night’s 4-3 win over the Edmonton Oilers, but he was pulled by a concussion spotter in the first period. He had turned aside the first six shots the Oilers mustered in the game prior to his exit.

In his first taste of NHL action, Ellis is 4-3-0 in eight appearances while putting up a .895 save percentage and 3.25 goals against average.

Ellis was a third-round pick by the St. Louis Blues at No. 93 overall in the 2019 NHL Draft. The native of Nova Scotia made 42 appearances with the Blues’ AHL affiliate Springfield Thunderbirds a season ago, posting an impressive .922 SV% and 2.63 GAA.

In March, Ellis signed a two-year contract extension with the Blues that came with a cap hit of $775,000 at the NHL level that kicked in this season. He was unable to win the backup job in St. Louis, and he was waived on October 5.

Buffalo claimed him, and he’s been in the team’s goaltending mix all season so far along with Alex Lyon and Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen. The trio has done enough to keep the Sabres’ goaltending metrics in the middle-range of the league, as they rank 20th with a team save percentage of .894.

The Sabres are in the midst of the longest postseason drought in the NHL, as they have not qualified for the Stanley Cup Playoffs since 2011. So far this year, their bid to put an end to that run is off to a suboptimal start.

Buffalo occupies last place in the Atlantic Division with 28 points and a record of 12-14-4. On the flip side, a tightly-packed Eastern Conference means the Sabres are just seven points back of the second wild card spot.