Scott Gordon stayed consistent with not revealing tomorrow's starting goaltender, but I'd put my money on Rick DiPietro

DiPietro has his own net most of practice and has three days this week to refine some points with goaltender consultant Sudarshan Maharaj.

"It's going to be exciting," DIPietro said of his first start at home, whenever that may be. "I've always said I like playing here in front of this crowd. It definitely makes it easy to take your game to that next level. Whenever it happens, it happens, but I'm definitely looking forward to it."

When asked what he was looking to see DiPietro improve upon from his last start Friday in Dallas, Gordon seemed pretty satisfied with what he saw. Given DiPietro's lengthy absence from play, Gordon said, it was "probably better than expected."

One thing he was particularly happy to see was DiPietro now sit back too far in his crease, a crutch some goaltenders use when they are not at their sharpest.

"That to me was one thing that I noticed, that that can be a safety valve," Gordon said, encouraged that DiPietro did not fall into that practice.

If DiPietro does start tomorrow, he'll surely embrace the challenge of squaring off against Ryan Miller who has won his past 5 decisions and is 26-8-3 with a .936 save percentage.

Oh, and the rest of his Sabres team isn't too bad either--they've won 7 of their last eight and have not suffered a loss in regulation since December 23.

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