The Buffalo Sabres can clinch a spot in the Stanley Cup Playoffs for the first time in 15 years when they visit the Ottawa Senators on Thursday.<\/p>\n
The Sabres (46-21-8, 100 points) reached the century mark in points Tuesday with a 4-3 win against the New York Islanders, the first time they\u2019ve done so since the 2009-10 season. That victory that helped their magic number to clinch drop to a mere two points, aided by the Senators\u2019 6-3 loss to the Florida Panthers.<\/p>\n
Any type of win against the Senators (38-26-10, 86 points) and Buffalo\u2019s ticket is officially punched.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s awesome. It feels good to see that 100 on there,\u201d forward Peyton Krebs said. \u201cIt\u2019s been a lot of work, obviously. Lot of ups and downs. We\u2019ve still got a long ways to go here, but that feels good to hit that 100. I think it\u2019s going to really give us some momentum here in the last few games and in the playoffs.\u201d<\/p>\n
The victory against the Islanders combined with the Tampa Bay Lightning losing to the Montreal Canadiens moved the Sabres back into top spot in the Atlantic Division. The Lightning do hold a game in hand.<\/p>\n
Krebs broke a 2-2 tie late in the third period against New York, tallying his 11th goal of the season to surpass his career high of 10 set last season. His goal came just over three minutes after the Islanders tied it on a fluky bounce.<\/p>\n
The 25-year-old has been a key part of the team\u2019s success, bringing energy and drive that\u2019s helped make him a mainstay on the top line alongside Tage Thompson and Alex Tuch. He also has started to find his offense, with six points (two goals, four assists) in his past eight games.<\/p>\n
\u201cHis energy, it\u2019s always up there at the top,\u201d Buffalo coach Lindy Ruff said. \u201cSome of the energy, on a down day, I think even annoys some of the players: \u2018Quit competing so hard, I don\u2019t feel as good as you do.\u2019 But that energy is infectious. There\u2019s not once you have to tell the guy, \u2018Come on, pick it up a little bit.\u2019 It\u2019s what drives teams. He\u2019s a driver.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ottawa, meanwhile, will be looking to keep its playoff hopes alive following the setback to the Panthers on Tuesday, a game they trailed 5-0 after the first period.<\/p>\n
The Senators are two points behind the Columbus Blue Jackets for the second wild card from the Eastern Conference. They\u2019ve played one fewer game and hold the edge in the regulation wins and regulation\/overtime wins\u2019 tiebreakers.<\/p>\n
\u201cDisappointing. We talked about the importance of a good start in this building and that was the opposite,\u201d Ottawa coach Travis Green said. \u201cWe just looked flat, didn\u2019t have a lot of energy. \u2026 Flat out, we had a lot of players who weren\u2019t good enough.\u201d<\/p>\n
Thursday\u2019s tilt will be the first of a five-game homestand for the Senators, who have lost three in a row (0-2-1). They are 18-11-6 as the hosts.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re in the middle of the hunt right now for a spot,\u201d forward Drake Batherson said. \u201cIt isn\u2019t like losing (Tuesday) means the season is over. It probably makes our job a little harder. But I trust this group.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Sabres have won both meetings so far, but the teams have not met since Dec. 23, 2025.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Buffalo Sabres can clinch a spot in the Stanley Cup Playoffs for the first time in 15…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":535882,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5104],"tags":[5,4,72,25,5157,73],"class_list":{"0":"post-535940","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ottawa-senators","8":"tag-hockey","9":"tag-nhl","10":"tag-ottawa","11":"tag-ottawa-senators","12":"tag-ottawasenators","13":"tag-senators"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116333157763694855","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535940","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=535940"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535940\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/535882"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=535940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=535940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=535940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}