In one week from today, the Buffalo Sabres’ regular season will come to an end. With five games remaining until then, Buffalo can only try and play spoiler to teams looking to make the playoffs.
Tonight, the Sabres will close out their series against Philadelphia, which will be their final Nationally televised game. The Flyers have taken each of the first two games by scores of 4-1 and 4-3.
Philadelphia currently sits in a playoff spot only have a few points of space between another team catching them. For a team that’s trying to make the postseason, the Flyers have struggled as of late, going 4-4-2 in their last 10 games.
“I don’t think we’ve been as sharp,” Scott Hartnell said. “Those games a few weeks ago seemed like every shift we were on, and the last couple it seems like we haven’t paid the price, or haven’t played within the system. … You can really tell we were going four lines all together in the system, and the last couple games have been not that way.”
The Sabres haven’t been much better, but they’ve already solidified at least a top two overall pick in the draft. They’ve won just two games in their past ten, but showed some level of compete by playing with St. Louis and Detroit, both being one goal games.
“We competed,” Hackett said. “We showed we can play with any team, first place or a great team like Detroit here. They’re both tough buildings to play in and we’re going in the right direction, I think.”
With nothing to play for, head coach Ted Nolan is still looking for the Sabres to show up and play. While the goal scoring is historically bad, it looks like the defense may have tightened up, despite some collapses here and there.
“We have nothing to lose,” McBain said after the loss to Detroit. “We left it all out on the ice. We battled, and hopefully it’s a sign of things to come.”
“We competed. We battled,” Hackett said. “We’re going in the right direction.”
Tonight’s game is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. and can be seen on the NBCSN.