Gamenight: Avs @ Sabres 3/7/07

Colorado (33-29-5, 71 points, 4th NW, 9th West)
@
Buffalo (44-16-5, 93 points, 1st NE, 1st East)

Wednesday, March 7th, 2007
7:00pm
HSBC Arena

Season Series: Of course, there isn’t one. But the Sabres have won three straight meetings with the Avalanche, and six of the last eight games in the series. Their last meeting was Dec 4, 2005, a 6-4 Sabres victory. Marty Biron was the winning goalie that night.

The world famous Divealanche circus comes to town tonight. You know what that means???



That’s right. My favorite NHL player of all time is in the building tonight. I’ll probably spend more time watching him than my own team. Sakic is still the heart and soul of that franchise, which means he’ll probably be traded soon. Other than that, there’s not much to worry about on Colorado. They are on a 3 game winning streak, but still 8 points out of the final playoff spot in the West even after beating Boston last night on the strength of a Peter BOO-DIE shutout. Paul Stastny is on a 16-game point streak, tying the rookie franchise record set by his own father Peter, and has 63 points on the season.

More importantly for the Sabres, we get former Av Chris Drury back tonight after missing 4 games due to a concussion. Drury skated at practice Tuesday on a line with fellow New England native Mike Ryan and Dainius Zubrus. The streaking Amerks….sorry, Sabres….have been led recently by Drew Stafford, who has 12 points in the last 7 games. I’m quickly growing quite the affinity for this guy, and he may be next on the jersey list.

I’m praying that Ryan Miller will be between the pipes tonight, and after last night, I’d expect Budai in there too. I’m sure that Conklin (ugh) will get a start this weekend when the Sabres play the trap-a-licious Wild and Devils on consecutive nights. Looks like I’ll be able to catch up on some sleep.

The puck drops at 7:10pm.

Update 3:08pm - Fixed Stastny's streak. I had forgotten about last night for some silly reason.