{"id":540201,"date":"2026-04-04T12:44:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-04T12:44:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/540201\/"},"modified":"2026-04-04T12:44:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-04T12:44:13","slug":"sabres-at-capitals-how-to-watch-lineup-notes-and-storylines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/540201\/","title":{"rendered":"Sabres at Capitals | How to watch, lineup notes, and storylines"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>WASHINGTON \u2013\u00a0Buffalo could clinch a playoff berth before hitting the ice Saturday at Capital One Arena.<\/p>\n<p>If the Rangers beat the Red Wings in regulation (12:30\u00a0p.m.), the Sabres will already be playoff-bound when they face the Washington Capitals at 7 p.m. Without New York&#8217;s help, Buffalo can clinch with a win.<\/p>\n<p>Whatever seals the deal, the Sabres are eager to make it official and end the organization\u2019s 14-year postseason drought. But they\u2019ve got 100 points and have been the NHL\u2019s best team for nearly four months, so just making the playoffs is no longer the goal; they aim to qualify, then go on a run.<\/p>\n<p>In <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nhl.com\/sabres\/news\/buffalo-sabres-ottawa-senators-recap-playoff-clinch\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Thursday\u2019s 4-1 defeat at Ottawa<\/a>, the neutral zone was clogged, high-danger shots were few and far between, and some apparent penalties went uncalled. Losing in that environment reminded the Sabres that they\u2019re hardly a finished product.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEvery game\u2019s gonna be like this, and if we want to be able to do anything in the postseason, (we\u2019re) gonna have to find ways to win different ways,\u201d said alternate captain Mattias Samuelsson, who scored the only goal in the loss. \u201cAnd we definitely didn\u2019t do that tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re not in the playoffs yet,\u201d added forward Jason Zucker. \u201cWe\u2019ve got a lot of work to do. We need to shore up a lot of what we\u2019re doing. I don\u2019t think we have any panic in our room, but we have some stuff that we need to have a little bit more urgency towards.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Buffalo now faces another urgent opponent in the Capitals, who sit three points out of a wild card spot but just got blown out in New Jersey on Thursday. And Washington knows it can hang with the Sabres, having beaten them 2-1 at KeyBank Center last month.<\/p>\n<p>Here are all the details before Saturday\u2019s puck drop.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON \u2013\u00a0Buffalo could clinch a playoff berth before hitting the ice Saturday at Capital One Arena. If the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":540202,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5100],"tags":[1107,229,5133,5,4,1108],"class_list":{"0":"post-540201","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-buffalo-sabres","8":"tag-buffalo","9":"tag-buffalo-sabres","10":"tag-buffalosabres","11":"tag-hockey","12":"tag-nhl","13":"tag-sabres"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116346504272160768","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540201","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=540201"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540201\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/540202"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=540201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=540201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=540201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}