Mike Harrington

The Colorado Avalanche, at 8-1-5 overall, have taken over the No. 1 spot and they host the Sabres on Thursday night in Denver.

It was 20 years ago Wednesday when the Sabres suffered an indignity unmatched in the annals of the NHL when they lost the 1999 Stanley Cup final on Brett Hull’s

Once the Herd's longest-serving general manager, Buczkowski is now a respected figure across the minor leagues as the president of Rich Baseball Operations and is one of the newest inductees into the Greater Buffalo Sports Hall of Fame.

Colorado still has just one regulation loss in 24 games, a first in the NHL since 2013, but its 10-game winning streak ended with a shootout loss in Minnesota.

Tampa Bay goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy leads the NHL with a 2.13 goals-against average, is second in wins (22) and tied for second in save percentage. He is 11-0-1 in his

With Tampa Bay's sudden slump, the Colorado Avalanche got back to No. 1 after ending Dallas' 11-game winning streak.

As the Sabres close in on their first playoff berth since 2011, here's a daily look at where their magic number stands to clinch the spot that will end the longest postseason drought in NHL history.

"There's just no room for error in this division right now, no room for the kind of abhorrent hockey the Sabres played on their road trip to Ottawa and Washington to fall to 2-3-2 in their last seven games," writes Mike Harrington.

Here are Mike Harrington's Stanley Cup power rankings.

The Sabres had a lot of problems in Game 3, but the biggest takeaway was the venue itself. The Bell Centre crowd of 20,962 probably deserved one of the three stars, Mike Harrington writes.