Sportsfrog.com

A day after 6th place Dallas defeated 2nd place Anaheim, a day after 11th place Boston defeated 3rd place Tampa Bay, and a day after 9th place Edmonton defeated 1st place Detroit, hopes are high around the league for what the Saturday NHL schedule shall bring us.


For many teams on the bubble, like St. Louis, Colorado, Edmonton, Boston and the Rangers, Saturday marks the final stretch prior to Tuesday’s 3pm trade deadline to evaluate whether they are sellers or contenders.

And the standings in both conferences have tightened over the past few weeks.

At 1pm, 7th place Montreal will visit Nassau and battle the 9th place but surging Islanders.

Then at 7pm, Ottawa will rematch on home ice their line-brawl, 5-6 Thursday night shootout loss to Buffalo. The Sabres will be without captain Chris Drury (plus like half of the rest of their team), who’s out indefinitely with a concussion suffered in Thursday night’s game.

Also at 7pm, Carolina and Atlanta find themselves facing off in a key matchup that suddenly is for 2nd place in their division. Both teams are scrambling a bit right now as they’ve each watched the Tampa Bay Lightning streak to first place in their division on the shoulders of a 17-5-1 run. The Hurricanes also made news yesterday by acquiring veteran winger
Anson Carter from Columbus.

Finally, I recommend Detroit at Nashville – 8pm in the Music City. It’s the Preds first chance to test drive their new center against the Wings. Both teams are coming off rare home shootout losses.

All times are, of course, Eastern.