Buffalo, NY -- The Buffalo Sabres have had to deal with their fair share of injuries this season to their players, and now they can add their head coach to that list.

During Monday's practice, Lindy Ruff was skating backwards towards an area where Jordan Leopold had been taken down and was sliding across the ice. Ruff was accidentally leg-swept by Leopold approximately 30-feet from the goal and hit the playing surface with a huge thud.

Ruff remained on the ice where trainers quickly scurried towards him. He laid down on the ice for a couple of minutes before being helped up to his skates. The head coach then skated gingerly, with the assistance of trainers, off the ice and to the locker room.

Ruff was not available to the media after practice and had to be taken for x-rays.  The results are not good for the head coach, he has three broken ribs.

Leopold was obviously shaken after the collision, explaining what happened to coaches and players that weren't at that end of the ice who were close enough to see.

"Oh I lost my breath," said the defenseman. "I was looking back right when it happened and I yelled, 'Are you alright? You alright?' and right away, 'No.' So that wasn't a good thing. I know Lindy's a tough guy, he's played a lot of games in the NHL and played through a lot of injuries. Your body ends up hurting more and more every day the older you get, but that was one of those unexpected ones. Those ones are dangerous."

Leopold went back and re-told how things happened from his perspective to the media following practice.

"Accidents are part of the game I guess. That was weird," he said. "Racing for a puck with Ville [Leino] and I end up losing an edge. Right when I hit the deck I knew, no way was I getting up. I was yelling 'Heads! Heads! Heads!' and Lindy had his back turned to me and that ended up happening."

While Ryan Miller was on the other end of the ice, he added this about the untimely event.

"Scary, scary situation," he said. "Lindy's broken a few bones and had a few scrapes, a few cuts in his career so to see him in that much pain, he probably has something going on there. So hopefully he can get that sorted out, and he's alright. We need him behind the bench yelling and calling the lines."

Miller went on to say this was the second-worst injury to a coach he's seen during practice. He recalled a time where former assistant Brian McCutcheon took a puck straight to the head off a slapshot. Tyler Ennis also added he's seen coaches get hit in the head with a puck that deflected off the goal post.

The biggest relief for some of the players was that he didn't knock his head against the ice when falling.

"Lindy being a former player, he knew how to take the fall," Miller said. "He took it in to his body rather than letting his head whip back or else it could have been really devastating. Just hopefully he's going to be feeling good in a few days here."

Ruff may be in a good deal of pain but the Sabres expect to have him back at Tuesday's practice.

Completely overshadowed by the hit was the fact that Thomas Vanek did not skate with the team during practice. He's been day-to-day with an upper body injury since the beginning of February following the team's last game in Montreal. Jochen Hecht and Zack Kassian also did not skate with the team. Hecht is still dealing with concussion-like symptoms and Kassian may have been sent back to Rochester with 12 healthy forwards on the roster.

Twitter: @JoeB_WGR