It is almost over. The longest playoff drought in NHL history, currently sitting at 14 years, is on the verge of ending. One more win this week will do it. Then the Sabres are in. It will also be a well-earned playoff berth given the way they have turned their season around since mid-November.
Tage Thompson is playing like a star, Rasmus Dahlin is playing like a superstar, and they are playing wildly entertaining hockey, as any good Sabres team should.
The playoffs are going to happen. It is now just a matter of whether or not they win the division or get the No. 2 spot in the Atlantic.
Either way they will probably be getting home-ice in the first-round, which is something their fans absolutely deserve.
The Canadiens hit a little bit of a slump in early-mid-March that kind of pushed them back into the playoff bubble for a brief period of time. That slump seems to be over, and they remain in the driver’s seat for the No. 3 seed in the Atlantic Division.
The young core of Nick Suzuki, Cole Caufield, Juraj Slafkovsky, Ivan Demidov and Lane Hutson is fantastic, and should be the foundation of a contending team for the foreseeable future. The question is going to be whether or not they have enough depth and goaltending around them to help them take the next step in their development.
The playoffs were the expectation at the start of the season.
Now they have to win in the playoffs. If nothing else, a Buffalo-Montreal series would be highly entertaining with some of the best crowd environments in the first round and two really exciting young teams.