Finally. The day Bruins fans have had circled on their calendar for weeks.
OK… that might be a slight exaggeration, but make no mistake -- the Bruins’ upcoming games against the Buffalo Sabres are big.
They need to do what every other team in their division has been doing -- take care of business against what is without question the worst team in the NHL.
The Sabres have lost 12 games in a row, two shy of the NHL’s longest losing streak of the last decade… which was also set by the Sabres in 2014-15. They just fired their coach. Their best player, Jack Eichel, is out indefinitely -- possibly for the rest of the season -- with an upper-body injury. They produce seemingly nightly viral videos of truly horrific hockey.
The Bruins are in a five-team race for four playoff spots. Look at the damage their rivals have done against the Sabres…
The first-place Capitals are 5-0-1 against them, most recently crushing them 6-0 on Monday. The second-place Islanders are a perfect 6-0-0 against them, recently outscoring them 15-6 in a three-game series.
The third-place Penguins have only played them twice, but outscored them 8-2 in a pair of wins last week. The fifth-place Flyers are 4-1-0 against them and have shut them out three times despite being a poor defensive team themselves.
The Bruins? They haven’t played the Sabres yet this season. Their two scheduled games against them earlier this year got postponed by Buffalo’s COVID-19 outbreak.
That means that while the East’s other playoff contenders, with the exception of the Penguins (and the Rangers if you think they can make a run), have already gotten through the bulk of their Buffalo feasting, the Bruins still get to play the Sabres eight times -- eight times in just a 29-game stretch between now and the end of the regular season.
Of course, these aren’t actually free wins even if it seems that way -- remember that the Bruins actually lost two of their three games against the league-worst Red Wings last season. They have to go out and actually take advantage of what should be a decisive mismatch, but any team worthy of a playoff spot should be able to do that, just as their East rivals already have.
Maybe you allow for one or even two slip-ups somewhere along the way, but regardless, the Bruins should be able to rack up a lot of points in these eight games. And with a playoff berth far from guaranteed, they’ll need to.
If Tuesday's win over the Penguins and Dan Vladar's first NHL win was the start of a confidence boost for the Bruins, they have a great chance to build even more over the next few days.
The Sabres' porous defense could be just what the Bruins need to get some secondary scoring going and have some guys see shots end up in the back of the net. Their inept offense could help the Bruins' banged-up defense settle in a little.
Or it could go the other way and the Bruins' confidence could really take a hit if they suddenly can't even get on track against Buffalo. And if that's the case, and they start to drop points to the Sabres, then there are going to be some real and fair questions about whether the Bruins are even a playoff team and even worth investing in at the trade deadline.
We’ll start to get an idea which way things might go in this two-game series that begins Thursday night and continues Saturday afternoon.