BUFFALO — Jon Cooper took one look at the size of the media scrum waiting for his morning availability Monday at KeyBank Center in Buffalo and broke into a wry grin.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s everyone doing here?\u201d the Tampa Bay Lightning coach asked. \u201cIt\u2019s Game 77, not Game 83.\u201d<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t be fooled. He was toying with the press. He knows exactly why.<\/p>\n
And so does this entire city.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s all part of the anticipation of the clash between the Lightning and Buffalo Sabres on Monday (7 p.m. ET; The Spot, NHLN, MSG-B, TVAS), a rematch of what fans here are calling \u201cthe game\u201d of the NHL season. \u00a0<\/p>\n
On March 8, the two Atlantic Division rivals combined for 15 goals, 28 penalties, 102 penalty minutes and 10 fighting majors. Lightning forward Brandon Hagel<\/a>\u00a0received a $5,000 fine from the NHL for his actions as the aggressor of an altercation with Sabres captain Rasmus Dahlin<\/a>.<\/p>\n When the dust had settled, the Sabres won 8-7 in what many players described as a game played in a playoff atmosphere, one they expect to be replicated, if not intensified, this time around.<\/p>\n \u201cI think it will be tremendous for sure,\u201d Sabres coach Lindy Ruff said. \u201cThere\u2019ll be a little bit about trying to keep your emotions in check. You have to balance that out too.<\/p>\n \u201cBut you\u2019d rather have your team jacked up than not jacked up.\u201d<\/p>\n Emotions will not be an issue.<\/p>\n The game itself?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BUFFALO — Jon Cooper took one look at the size of the media scrum waiting for his morning…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":544170,"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-544169","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\/116359197681757012","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544169","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=544169"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544169\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/544170"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=544169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=544169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=544169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}