Sabres may ship Kotalik to Europe

First Niagara Center - The Buffalo Sabres are trying to work out a deal to let forward Ales Kotalik play in Europe this season. Kotalik cleared NHL waivers Monday but he decided not to report to the Rochester Americans. Kotalik is a nine year NHL veteran who the Sabres re-acquired in a trade with Calgary back in June. The Sabres waived him last weekend to get under the NHL salary cap.

Buffalo's big European trip starts Saturday night and the club has had a few full days of workouts without any preseason games this week. The players say they needed some serious ice time in practice to get ready for the season.

"We said earlier in the week that it will be nice to have a full week of practice, and be able to work on systems,” says Sabres forward Jason Pominville. “We worked on the power play today, so finding that chemistry is going to be really important. There's no better way than playing games to get back into game shape, but creating habits is by practicing well and practicing hard, and we were able to do that this week."

The Sabres play a preseason game in Washington Friday night against the Caps.