{"id":407621,"date":"2026-01-14T18:24:18","date_gmt":"2026-01-14T18:24:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/407621\/"},"modified":"2026-01-14T18:24:18","modified_gmt":"2026-01-14T18:24:18","slug":"dunne-kesselring-jones-pro-hockey-rumors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/407621\/","title":{"rendered":"Dunne, Kesselring, Jones \u2013 Pro Hockey Rumors"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Buffalo Sabres will be without their typical fourth-line center for quite some time. According to Paul Hamilton of WGR Sports Radio<\/a>, Joshua Dunne<\/a> is expected to miss the next four to six weeks with a mid-body injury.<\/p>\n

After Monday\u2019s loss to the Florida Panthers, head coach Lindy Ruff<\/a> indicated that Dunne wasn\u2019t injured from the hit by Panthers defenseman Donovan Sebrango<\/a>, which was the original thought at the time. Ruff went on to explain that the mid-body injury has been bothering Dunne for the last little while.<\/p>\n

With all due respect to Dunne, he\u2019s not an irreplaceable part of the Sabres\u2019 forward core. The 27-year-old center has scored one goal and four points in 28 games with Buffalo this season, with a -4 rating. Still, he\u2019s given them a 50.6% success rate in the faceoff dot, which has been beneficial given that he\u2019s started 78.2% of his shifts in the defensive zone.<\/p>\n

Given the duration of the expected recovery timeline, the Sabres will likely place Dunne on the injured reserve by the end of the weekend. This will give Buffalo the space to recall a depth forward as they embark on a five-game road trip next week.<\/p>\n

In more positive news on the injury front, Hamilton also reported<\/a> that defenseman Michael Kesselring<\/a> is ready to return to the lineup, but won\u2019t play this evening. Kesselring has been on Buffalo\u2019s injured reserve for the last week, and the idea is that the team doesn\u2019t want him returning for a back-to-back homestand.<\/p>\n

Kesselring has been relatively disappointing throughout his first year with the team, though much of that can be attributed to injuries. He\u2019s only appeared in 16 games for the Sabres this season, going scoreless while earning a -4 rating. Still, his advanced metrics have been solid, and he\u2019s only one year removed from scoring seven goals and 29 points in 82 games with the Utah Hockey Club.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Kesselring\u2019s impending return has spurned a proactive roster move from Buffalo. Earlier today, the team shared<\/a> that they\u2019ve reassigned Zachary Jones<\/a> to the AHL\u2019s Rochester Americans. Despite spending multiple days on the NHL roster, Jones has yet to play for the Sabres this season, instead scoring three goals and 32 points in 28 games for AHL Rochester.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Buffalo Sabres will be without their typical fourth-line center for quite some time. According to Paul Hamilton…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":407622,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5100],"tags":[1107,229,5133,5,402,51361,1523,4,1108,405,35591],"class_list":{"0":"post-407621","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-buffalo-sabres","8":"tag-buffalo","9":"tag-buffalo-sabres","10":"tag-buffalosabres","11":"tag-hockey","12":"tag-injury","13":"tag-joshua-dunne","14":"tag-michael-kesselring","15":"tag-nhl","16":"tag-sabres","17":"tag-transactions","18":"tag-zachary-jones"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/115894856334589920","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407621","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=407621"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407621\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/407622"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=407621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=407621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=407621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}