Personally I would rather the Sabres play any of the other 28 NHL teams tonight besides the Flyers. This goes all the way back to game 7 of the playoffs last year, when Philly blew the doors off a injured and overmatched Sabres squad to send them home. Well tonight the Flyers may have that chance again. With a Caps victory against Florida tonight and a Sabres loss the playoff race is over. However flip that scenerio and the Sabres will have a playoff birth by the throat. All that will be needed is a point against a Boston team probably without Chara, Bergeron, Thomas, and other top players. Also both teams could win tonight and then Florida, Buffalo, and Washington will be playing for their playoff lives Saturday.

The Flyers themselves are locked in a battle for home ice advantage with the Penguins in the 4-5 matchup. The Pens have a 3 point lead and can lock it up with a win tonight against the Rangers. Personally if I was a Flyer fan I hope for two Flyer L's and two NJ W's and a first round matchup with Florida or Washington. The Flyers come into tonight's game off of a 5-3 loss to the Rangers Tuesday night. Philly forgot the game started at 7 and before they knew what hit them the Rangers put up a 4-0 lead after the one. That would be all King Henrik needed to lock up the division title for New York.

Philly comes in a little banged up. They will be without Danny Briere, Andrej Meszaros, and solid trade deadline pickup Nick Grossman. Also Illya Bryzgalov is only playing his second game coming back from a chipped bone/fracture in his foot. Many people do not think he is 100% yet and Buffalo would be smart to take advantage of that. Bryzgalov was red hot in March and the Sabres need to get to him early. Making Bryz uncomfortable should be top priority tonight.

Buffalo also comes in with two big injuries. Both Tyler Myers and Christian Ehrhoff will miss the remaining two games and possibly longer. Without those two on the blue line Buffalo has given up 14 goals in two games with the Leafs and one game with the Penguins. That needs to change tonight or the offensively gifted Flyers will end the night quickly.

Philly has won all 3 matchups this season. At times they appeared to just toy with the Sabres. In the first game they chased Miller within 5 minutes, the second game they pulled a vintage 2011 playoffs comeback to win 5-4 in OT, and the most recent game was a 7-2 laugher where the Flyers put up 7 unanswered. However something Sabres fans can grab onto is that these three matchups were before Ryan Miller got hot and the new bodies in the lineup in the form of Marcus Foligno, Tyler Ennis, Cody Hodgson, and Alex Sulzer. Also two of these games happened when Leino had under 5 goals and he scored in one of them. He has 7 now! Sorry, I thought Flyers fans would like that.

This is technically Buffalo's 3rd "game 7" of the season the first a 5-1 win against the Caps in DC and the second a thrilling 6-5 OT win against the Leafs Tuesday in the FN Center. Two different ways to win, but both count for two points.

One of these days these games are going to give me a heart attack.

Projected Lineup:

Stafford-Ennis-Foligno

Vanek-Hodgson-Tropp

Leino-Roy-Pominville

Gerbe-McCormick-Kaleta

Regehr-Sekera

Sulzer-Leopold

Weber-McNabb

Miller

(Enroth)