Tonight at 8:00 p.m. ET, the Boston Bruins (5-2-0) and Buffalo Sabres (1-8-1) faceoff live from the First Niagara Center in Buffalo. The game can be live streamed here. Boston fans can hear all fo the action on WEEI 93.7 FM while Buffalo fans can do thes same on WGR 550 AM.
These two Atlantic Division rivals come into their first of five meetings this season off of very different 2013 seasons and opposite starts to the 2013-14 campaign. The Bruins were two wins away from the Stanley Cup championship last season and have started off hot while the Sabres are in rebuilding mode after finishing 12th last season in the Eastern Conference. Boston has won three of its last four coming in while Buffalo lost seven-straight games to start the season before picking up its first set of points.
The Bruins, a favorite to make a deep playoff push, showed exactly why they're slated to be one of the better teams in the league with a dominating 5-0 win over the Tampa Bay Lightning on Saturday.
"We had a good start, obviously, but we scored the goals the way we wanted to score them," coach Claude Julien said, according to NHL.com following the game. "Offensively it was nice to score some goals. I thought the pace and the tempo of our game was good tonight too. We were moving the puck quickly and we skated from start to finish."
Boston has spread the scoring up and down the lineup thus far this season, but has been led by Milan Lucic (three goals, three assists) and David Krejci (one goal, five assists) who each have six points while Chris Kelly is tied with Lucic for the team-lead by lighting the lamp three times.
While the Sabres have struggled in the season's early going, Buffalo has played its division rivals tough, losing all three games against Atlantic Division teams thus far this season by just one goal while posting an 0-2-1 record in those games. Buffalo's latest game was a 4-2 loss to the surging Colorado Avalanche, but they showed some resiliency in the last two frames.
"I think we came on strong in the second and third," Cody Hodgson told NHL.com. "We started playing with the puck more and started making some real positive things happen. We know we can play. It's not a question of that. It's not putting ourselves behind the eight-ball right away."
Hodgson has led the Sabres with seven points off of two goals and five assists, while Thomas Vanek leads the team with three tallies while adding three helpers for six points.
Points have come at a premium for Buffalo and things won't get any easier when its skaters try to solve Tuukka Rask, who is 5-2-0 with a 1.29 goals-against average and a .954 save percentage.
Buffalo usually counters with Ryan Miller, who is always at the forefront of trade rumors for the rebuilding Sabres. On the season, Miller is 1-6-0 with a 2.73 GAA and a .926 save percentage.
Boston will look to keep its early season surge going while the desperate Sabres will hope to keep playing strong in division games when the puck drops in Buffalo tonight.
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