Game Night!

It's hockey night! Coming to live and not on TV from Buffalo, NY! Well, not on TV for Panthers fans living in south Florida. How a game as important as this is left off the air befuddles me. It's not even a home game that local fans can attend if they want to watch. It's at these few times that I feel lucky to not live in the Panthers viewing territory and have Center Ice.

With all that being said, tonight is indeed another big game. Let's face it, every game is big when you are in the 8th and final playoff spot, leading 9th place by a point, trailing the 6th and 7th seeds by a point. Everybody is in action tonight, as well. Pittsburgh is in Columbus, go Blue Jackets. Montreal is hosting the Islanders, go Isles. The Rangers are in Nashville, come on Preds! And Carolina is in Dallas, go Stars go. Not getting 2 points tonight from the Sabres could very well be a 4 point loss.

According to George Stewart of the Herald, Michael Repik was recalled and will be on the 4th line with Brett McLean and either Tarnasky or Anthony Stewart. Hm. That means Kamil Kreps is now centering the Zednik\Booth line. Hm. As of now, I'm not a big fan of that move. I haven't really seen Kreps do anything worthwhile this season to make me think he can be productive with our 2 best scorers. Yes, Kreps scored a goal last game. Only his 4th. But hey, Pete DeBoer has seemed like he knows what he's doing. Let's hope it pays off.

For those that haven't yet heard or noticed, tonight marks the return of Richard Zednik to the site of his near fatal accident last year. It's the first time he's played in Buffalo since Olli Jokinen's skate cut his throat. Jokinen is gone. Playoff hockey is near. While I imagine it would be near impossible to not think about it, hopefully Zednik just continues his immensely successful return season and keeps on putting pucks in the net.

Puck drops at 7:00. For those that can't watch on TV, why not give world-famous Randy Moller a listen?