Sabres in a big race down the stretch

New York, N.Y. (WGR 550) - The Carolina Hurricanes, Buffalo Sabres, Tampa Bay Lightning and Montreal Canadiens have all for once played the same amount of games with four games left.

The Canes lead the Eastern Conference with 106 points while the other three have 102. Carolina finishes with four games on the road against the Chicago Blackhawks, Utah Mammoth, Philadelphia Flyers and New York Islanders.

On Wednesday Buffalo is in New York to play the Rangers. They have one more road game after that against the Hawks with home games vs the Columbus Blue Jackets and Dallas Stars.

The Bolts travel to Montreal and Boston before ending the season with home games vs the Detroit Red Wings and the Rangers.

The Habs tangle with the Islanders and Flyers on the road. Before that they’re home against Tampa Bay and Columbus.

Buffalo had only won 2-of-7 games, but got back to playing up to the standards they have set for themselves on Monday against the Lightning. They got great goaltending from Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen and the team defended extremely well in front of him. Nursing a 3-2 lead in the third period, the Sabres had only given the high scoring Bolts three shots in the first 10:40. They knew that the key to getting back to their winning way started with good play in the defensive zone which then feeds their offense.

Alex Tuch revealed after Monday’s win over Tampa Bay that he had been nursing an injury. He said he felt much better Monday and it showed as he skated well to create all sorts of scoring chances. He netted his 30th goal of the season sprinting out of the penalty box and used his speed to get six dangerous shots on goal. That was his first goal in seven games.

It’s possible Tage Thompson is nursing an injury. He missed Monday’s morning skate due to what Ruff called “A maintenance day.” His production has slowed to four goals in 15 games.

Alex Lyon left the ice before the morning skate was over. Lindy Ruff said he tweaked a lower-body injury, but wasn’t going to dress for Wednesday’s game anyway.

Ruff mentioned he’s going to try to get different players into the mix starting Wednesday. Michael Kesselring, Conor Timmins, Tanner Pearson and Tyson Kozak are all in while Logan Stanley, Luke Schenn, Jordan Greenway and Josh Dunne all come out.

Kesselring has impatiently been waiting his turn sitting out the last 13 games. And when I say impatiently you absolutely want a player sitting out to be angry and impatient.

The Professional Hockey Writers Association have made Rasmus Dahlin the Sabres nominee for the Masterton Trophy. It’s given to the player who best exemplifies the qualities of perseverance, sportsmanship and dedication to hockey. Lindy Ruff thinks his captain deserves it,

“I just think it’s awesome, what he’s been through, what he represents for our team, our community, very well deserved.”

The Rangers opened the season in Buffalo with a 4-0 win while the Sabres came to New York in January and went home with a 6-2 victory.

The Rangers are not going to make the playoffs, but they are certainly playing the role of spoiler winning 5-of-6 games. In all five wins they only gave up one goal in the game and in the loss it was three.

Igor Shesterkin is 25-17-6 this season with a 2.50 goals against and .912 save percentage.

Mika Zibanejad has been on a roll lately with six points in four games. He leads the Rangers with 33 goals and 42 assists for 75 points in 77 games.

With Radim Mrtka’s season with the Seattle Thunderbirds over, the Sabres first-round pick in June has been reassigned to the Rochester Americans. Mrtka played four games with the Amerks getting one assist before being sent back to junior.

In 43 games with Seattle he had one goal and 33 assists for 34 points. He had three assists in five playoff games.

Join Schopp and the Bulldog for pregame starting at 6:00 when you’ll hear from Ruff. This is also a radio only game so the only place to hear Dan Dunleavy and Rob Ray is WGR Sports Radio 550.