Buffalo Sabres rookie Sam Reinhart will be a healthy scratch tonight when the Boston Bruins visit.
Reinhart, who suited up in the Sabres first five games, is a minus-1 with two shots on goal while averaging 10:26 in time on ice.
“It’s one of those things. He’s a young player that’s still learning,” Sabres coach Ted Nolan told NHL.com. “So we’ll let him watch a game and let’s see how he comes from that.”
Reinhart, 18, was the second overall pick at the June NHL Draft. He spent the past two games on the team’s fourth line.
Brian Flynn is expected to take his place in the lineup.
“You ask any first year player, a first couple (of years) player, they all go through it,” said Nolan. “They’ve got to watch. Sometimes you learn a lot more by watching than playing sometimes. It’s still early in his development. We tried to force-feed it right at the beginning. We tried putting him with a lot of minutes on the top lines, then we backed off a little bit. Now this is another way to try and get his game going.”
Reinhart is still eligible to be sent back to his Western Hockey League team, the Kootenay Ice, and the Sabres could avoid burning Year 1 of his entry-level contract.