BUFFALO, N.Y. - Julius Honka was shaken up in a collision with Antoine Roussel Friday and left practice to be checked out. But that's not why he won't play his second game in a row Saturday at Buffalo.
Honka is fine, according to coach Ken Hitchcock, and the decision had already been made that rookie Dillon Heatherington would stay in the lineup and that Honka would sit.
"He was good, solid, smart," Hitchcock said of Heatherington, who made his NHL debut Thursday. "This is a different dimension for us. He's an asset, a really good asset for us.