Toronto Maple Leafs plays host to Buffalo Sabres in their fourth and final encounter of the season
The second game of Saturday will be hosted by the Toronto Maple Leafs as they play host to the Buffalo Sabres at the Air Canada Center.
This will be the fourth meeting between the two teams out of the six scheduled meetings due to take place.
Out of the four meetings that have taken place so far, the Sabres won the first three while the Maple Leafs won the last game.
Both the teams have come up with some decent results during the last few games which have seen them notching up important wins and points for themselves to put them into play-off contention.
Sabres are in the cut but considering the tight race in the Eastern Conference, it can’t be said that they are surely in the play-offs as yet.
On the other hand, Maple Leafs aren’t far behind as well as they are in the 10th spot and win this time out would put them four points behind the eighth spot team.
Sabres are in good form which has seen them winning three out of their last four games against some of the big teams in the league like Philadelphia Flyers.
Maple Leafs were going through some good times but have lost their last three consecutive games which has hurt their chances of the play-off a great deal.
If they don’t make it into the cut then this will be the first time they don’t since the 2003-04 season.
The Maples Leafs were going through some good times in the league in the month of February which saw them winning 8 games in regulation time out of the 14 games they played.
They had Flyers down and under this Thursday but the Eastern Conference leaders came up with dominating performance to win the game 3-2 in the end.
With just 14 games in the season left to play, things are going to get tougher for them and chances of making it into the cut would get slimmer and slimmer with each loss.
"I guess this just makes Saturday's game all the more important," said Lupul. "There's a lot of games left but this is basically as close to a must-win as you can get."
Maple Leafs have played 68 games during the season so far out of which they have won 29 games in regulation time, 10 games in overtime to score 68 points.
Sabres have played 67 games during the season out of which they have won 33 games in regulation time, eight games in overtime to score a total of 74 points.
Sabres were up against Boston Bruins this Thursday and the game had a lot of stake.
Sabres came up with a decent ice hockey show which saw them winning 4-3 in the end after overtime.
"When you score in overtime this time of year it's exciting," Boyes said of his first game-winner with Buffalo. "It's about getting points now. It doesn't matter who we play."
Tags: