The Buffalo Sabres clinched a berth in the Stanley Cup Playoffs on Saturday, ending the longest drought in\u00a0NHL history.<\/p>\n
The Sabres (46-22-8) qualified for the first time since 2011 when the Detroit Red Wings lost 4-1 at the New York Rangers on Saturday. Buffalo, which visits the Washington Capitals later Saturday (7 p.m. ET; MNMT, MSG-B), is tied with the Tampa Bay Lightning for first in the Atlantic Division with 100 points each. The Sabres, however, have played one more game.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel great,\u201d Buffalo coach Lindy Ruff said. \u201cThe guys have worked so hard to get to this point. I mentioned yesterday four months of every month has been pretty darn consistent and we played a good brand of hockey. We\u2019ve gotten rewarded for how hard we\u2019ve played.<\/p>\n
\u201cFirst and foremost, I\u2019m so happy for (owners) Terry and Kim and the whole Pegula family, our fans, all the people that work in the building. I\u2019m stoked.\u201d<\/p>\n
Buffalo, which is likely to finish among the top three in the Atlantic, has not finished higher than fifth in its division since finishing third in the Northeast Division in 2011-12.<\/p>\n
Forward Tage Thompson<\/a>\u00a0leads the Sabres with 78 points (38 goals, 40 assists) in 76 games this season. Defenseman Rasmus Dahlin<\/a> is second with 67 points (17 goals, 50 assists) in 72 games, and forward Alex Tuch<\/a>\u00a0is third with 60 points (29 goals, 31 assists) in 76 games. Thirteen of their skaters have at least 10 goals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Buffalo Sabres clinched a berth in the Stanley Cup Playoffs on Saturday, ending the longest drought in\u00a0NHL…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":585966,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-585965","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/585965","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=585965"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/585965\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/585966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=585965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=585965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=585965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}