Article content

Tyler Ennis made it to the NHL because the 5-foot-9, 169-pound forward had the feet, the hands and the head for the game to avoid physical mayhem but last season in Buffalo the third part of the equation went missing because he suffered two concussions.

The local boy, who has been one of the cornerstones of the Sabres, didn’t play after Dec. 30. He took a hard, high hit from defenceman Robert Bortuzzo in late November, sat out 12 games and was hurt again when Alex Ovechkin and his 235 pound freight train crushed the 2008 first-round draft pick just before the New Year. Ennis, who turns 27 in early October, maybe wasn’t ready to come back after the Bortuzzo smack. Ovechkin’s steam-roll doubled down on the problem.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or Tyler Ennis suffered through a long, dark season with his concussions in Buffalo Back to video

In the end, Ennis, who has played 368 NHL games, got into just 23 last season.

It was a lost year, and while still a fan favourite in Buffalo, Jack Eichel and Ryan O’Reilly up front and Rasmus Ristolainen on the back-end have become the Sabres’ go-to guys. Ennis’s name came up at the June draft as a possible trade piece because he’s got major talent and they were on the hunt for a defenceman. They also had traded for the rights to Hobey Baker winger Jimmy Vesey from Harvard but Ennis’s uneasy medical status was a red flag to teams, understandably. He only played three games after U.S. Thanksgiving