The Buffalo Sabres host the Tampa Bay Lightning on Monday night with something the Sabres have not had since 2011: A playoff spot.<\/p>\n
Despite losing 6-2 to the host Washington Capitals on Saturday for their second loss in a row, the Sabres (46-23-8, 100 points) clinched a position in the Stanley Cup Playoffs.<\/p>\n
When the New York Rangers defeated the Detroit Red Wings in regulation 4-1 on Saturday afternoon, it ended the Sabres\u2019 NHL record 14-season postseason drought.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously unbelievable. I\u2019m happy for the city, I\u2019m happy for all the guys that have been grinding here for years, like the equipment managers, trainers, my teammates,\u201d captain and defenseman Rasmus Dahlin said. \u201c\u2026 Wow, it\u2019s going to be special, that\u2019s for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n
Buffalo finished last overall four times and had seven coaches during its time outside of the playoffs.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe guys have worked so hard to get to this point,\u201d said coach Lindy Ruff, who is in his second stint behind the team\u2019s bench. \u201cEvery month has been pretty darn consistent, and we played a good brand of hockey. We\u2019ve gotten rewarded for how hard we\u2019ve played.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dahlin got his 18th goal and had an assist in the loss on Saturday as Beck Malenstyn also scored.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s really hard to really focus on that (making the playoffs) right now with a loss, but really proud of the group,\u201d Alex Tuch said. \u201cIt\u2019s been a long time coming. It\u2019s my fifth year here, and pretty happy this afternoon.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Lightning (48-22-6, 102 points) have won four of their last five after a 3-1 win over the visiting Boston Bruins on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Tampa Bay, first in the Atlantic Division, had also clinched a playoff spot earlier in the day, securing its ninth straight postseason appearance.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor me to be sitting up here right now after game seven of this year when we had won just one, (the playoffs) seemed distant,\u201d Lightning coach Jon Cooper said. \u201cBut that\u2019s when the \u2018process over outcomes\u2019 came in and we didn\u2019t get the outcomes we wanted early on. This group is a special group. It\u2019s a great group in the sense of role definition. Everyone knows what they\u2019re doing. Everyone knows what they need to do for us to succeed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tampa Bay rallied with three goals in the third period for the win on Saturday.<\/p>\n
One of the goals was the 21st of the season for defenseman Darren Raddysh, which broke the franchise record for goals in a season by a defenseman. He had been tied with Dan Boyle (2007-08) along with teammate and captain Victor Hedman (2021-22) at 20.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m fortunate to play with a lot of good players and be put in this position,\u201d Raddysh said. \u201cI\u2019m thankful for that.\u201d<\/p>\n
His marker was the game winner, breaking a tie with 5:31 left. Nikita Kucherov added an empty-net goal for his 42nd of the season and 399th of his career.<\/p>\n
Defenseman Charle-Edouard D\u2019Astous tied it early in the third period. He has eight points (two goals, six assists) in his last seven games.<\/p>\n
Brandon Hagel missed his second game with an undisclosed injury.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Buffalo Sabres host the Tampa Bay Lightning on Monday night with something the Sabres have not had…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":542629,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5114],"tags":[191,5,4,190,109,5222],"class_list":{"0":"post-542628","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-washington-capitals","8":"tag-capitals","9":"tag-hockey","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-washington","12":"tag-washington-capitals","13":"tag-washingtoncapitals"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116353935910585295","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542628","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=542628"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542628\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/542629"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=542628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=542628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=542628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}