Lindy Ruff mentioned it greatest throughout his postgame press convention on Saturday: These are the video games you hope to be taking part in this time of 12 months.
The truncated season collection between the Buffalo Sabres and the Tampa Bay Lightning shifts to KeyBank Center at 6 p.m. on Sunday with the 2 groups tied atop the Atlantic Division at 82 factors (the Lightning have two video games in hand).
That means the winner of this recreation – at the least for a day – will acquire sole possession of first.
“This is really what you would ask for,” Ruff mentioned. “You want a team like that, you want to be able to play them. So, I’m looking forward to it.”
The Sabres have been the NHL’s greatest crew since their season turnaround started on Dec. 9, now with a 27-5-2 report in that span. They gained their sixth straight recreation at house towards Nashville on Saturday. (Read extra about that recreation, together with Sam Carrick’s debut, here.)
The Lightning are 23-7-2 in that very same span. They hit a skid with 4 straight losses this previous week however corrected course with a 5-2 victory in Toronto on Saturday.
The two heavyweights hadn’t met all season till February. Now, after two entertaining video games in Tampa, they’re halfway by means of the season collection with a fourth and ultimate matchup due up in Buffalo on April 6. At this price, that might be an enormous one.
A refresher on the 2 prior conferences:
- Feb. 3: The Sabres took a 3-2 lead into the ultimate minute of regulation earlier than Darren Raddysh rifled the tying purpose from the purpose with 26 seconds remaining. Jake Guentzel gained it for the Lightning with 15 seconds left in extra time.
- Feb. 28: Buffalo jumped out to a 5-0 lead early within the second interval to chase Tampa goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy and held on to win, 6-2. Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen stopped 36 of 38 photographs and the Sabres held Lightning star Nikita Kucherov off the rating sheet, snapping his level streak at 12 video games.
“I think we’re gonna have incredible energy,” Ruff mentioned. “I mean, two teams get to play that are right next to each other in the standings. We had a heck of a game down there and you know they’re going to want to come back at us for the way that game ended up.”
Here’s what you want to know going into tonight’s matchup.
