Game 50

Buffalo Sabres (13-29-7) vs. New York Rangers (25-18-6)

Puck Drop: 7:00 PM EST | Madison Square Garden | New York, NY

TV: MSG

Radio: WGR 550

SB Nation Rangers Blog: Blueshirt Banter

Know Your Opponent

New York Rangers

Record: (25-18-6) | 56 PTS

Division Ranking: 5th in East Division

PP: 11th (21.3%)

PK: 6th (83.9%)

1. One More Time With Feeling

For the eighth and final time this season, the Buffalo Sabres will match up with the New York Rangers.

While New York continues to claw away at a playoff spot, they have seen success against the Sabres this season.

In seven previous games this season, New York holds a record of 5-2.

The Rangers also defeated the Sabres last game on April 25, 6-3.

2. Looking To Stay Hot

With the season rapidly coming to a close, Sam Reinhart finds himself to be white hot once more.

In his last five games, Reinhart has tallied seven points. Six of those points have come in the form of a goal.

While others have struggled on-and-off, Reinhart has pushed his goal total to 21 this season and is eclipsing his career-high of 25 goals in 2017-18.

3. Finding The Sweet Spot

While the Buffalo Sabres have struggled in the win column, the on-ice product has been much better over the last few weeks.

Last game against the Rangers felt like a microcosm of the bigger development. While Buffalo found themselves coming up short at the end of the game, it never truly felt like the Sabres were out of the game.

The offense has a new found life and the defense certainly seems to have improved under Don Granato.

While the season starts wrapping up here shortly, it will be interesting to see if Buffalo can keep their development moving forward against the Rangers.

Projected Lineups

Buffalo Sabres

Forwards

Jeff Skinner - Sam Reinhart - Victor Olofsson

Rasmus Asplund - Casey Mittelstadt - Tage Thompson

Anders Bjork - Dylan Cozens - Arttu Ruotsalainen

Tobias Rieder - Riley Sheahan - Drake Caggiula

Defense

Mattias Samuelsson - Rasmus Ristolainen

Rasmus Dahlin - Henri Jokiharju

Jacob Bryson - Colin Miller

Starter: Dustin Tokarski

New York Rangers

Forwards

Alexis LaFreniere - Mika Zibanejad - Pavel Buchnevich

Artemi Panarin - Ryan Strome - Colin Blackwell

Chris Kreider - Filip Chytil - Kaapo Kakko

Brett Howden - Kevin Rooney - Vitali Kravtsov

Defense

Libor Hajek - Adam Fox

K’Andre Miller - Brendan Smith

Ryan Lindgren - Zac Jones

Starter: Igor Shesterkin