Let’s start with some dates. Because I want to take it in a little bit.

If you’re reading this, you’re probably invested enough in the Buffalo Sabres to be aware that the Sabres’ win on Friday night in Florida put them in a playoff position in the standings. Not with the point percentage technicalities, but a playoff position where you can go to NHL dot com without having to touch a column sort and see a logo with a Buffalo and two Sabres in a playoff position.

There isn’t a great tool to look up NHL standings day-to-day from past seasons, so I guess it’s fortunate that it was as easy as looking for the last really good regular season Sabres team to find the last one to play games in February in the playoffs: February 13, 2010, the last game before the 2010 Olympic Break. The win improved the Sabres to 33-18-9 and snapped a 6-game losing streak to start that month. Even in a lockout-shortened 2012-13, the Sabres were already below .500 on February 2 when they lost 6-1 to the Montreal Canadiens. If you look at 10 years ago Friday, the Sabres would have already played two games under interim head coach, Ron Rolston, losing them both to drop to 6-12-1.

Of course, almost infamously, the last time the Sabres were not down for the count headed into March was when Jason Botterill declared the goal was to play meaningful games in March.

It wasn’t necessarily expected or even realistic that the Sabres would have made a run following that 2020 trade deadline, COVID or no COVID, and of course we all remember them losing the next six games after the deadline to even drop them out of the top 24 in the league to even qualify for the bubble, so that doesn’t take away how refreshing it feels to have the Sabres in the mix this season; it’s just uncanny that we’ve come full circle in what is likely now the closing months of COVID as an official global pandemic (knocks on all the wood).

And yeah coming off a bad first 40 minutes against Columbus doesn’t make the road ahead easier, but there’s no time to look back on that now that the calendar has turned. Ahead are 10 games against the current top 6 in the east and 6 games against their wild card chasing peers. Every game will have a new spotlight on it that will burn more brightly every time they take the ice, which will be an experience that will be so valuable for the future of the core.

So one question remains here on March 1: Can they do it?

Meet The Wild Cards

BOS, TOR, and TB in the Atlantic and CAR, NJ, and NYR in the Metro seem pretty locked into the top 3, so we’ll assume that stays. Stats and records will all be as of the morning of February 28, so the Sabres game against Columbus, among the rest of the slate of games on Tuesday, is not part of the sample. Playoff Odds are from our good friends at Puckluck. Rolling xGF% Graphs from MoneyPuck. Stat Rankings (League, Among 7 Wild Card Contenders). The schedule tables are for March and April.

Buffalo Sabres – 31-23-4 (66 PTS, .569 PTS%) – 24 games left – 46% Chance of Making The Playoffs

Games Against East WC Contenders – 6 (1H, 5A) 1 Black and Red	@NYI, @WSH, @NYI, @FLA, @DET, vOTT
Games Against East Top 6 – 10 (6H, 4A) 3 Black and Red	@BOS, vTB, vNYR (2), @TOR, vBOS, vNJ, vCAR, @NYR, @NJ
Games Against West Playoff Mix* – 3 (3H)	vEDM, vDAL, vNSH
Games Against Bottom of East – 4 (1H, 3A)	@PHI (2), vMTL, @CBJ
Games Against Bottom of West – 0

Pittsburgh Penguins – 29-21-9 (67 PTS, .568 PTS%) – 23 games left – 73% Chance of Making The Playoffs

New York Islanders – 31-25-7 (69 PTS, .548 PTS%) – 19 games left – 40% Chance of Making The Playoffs

Games Against East WC Contenders – 7 (4H, 3A)	vDET, vBUF (2), @PIT, vWSH, @WSH (2)
Games Against East Top 6 – 5 (3H, 2A)	vTOR, vNJ, @TB, @CAR, vTB
Games Against West Playoff Mix* – 1 (1A)	@LA
Games Against Bottom of East – 3 (2H, 1A)	@CBJ, vPHI, vMTL
Games Against Bottom of West – 2 (2A)	@ANA, @SJ

Florida Panthers – 29-26-6 (64 PTS, .525 PTS%) – 21 games left – 25% Chance of Making The Playoffs

Games Against East WC Contenders – 6 (3H, 3A)	vPIT, @DET, @OTT, vBUF, vOTT, @WSH
Games Against East Top 6 – 6 (5H, 1A)	vNJ, vTOR (2), vNYR, @TOR, vCAR
Games Against West Playoff Mix* – 3 (3H)	vVGK, vWPG, vNSH
Games Against Bottom of East – 4 (1H, 3A)	vMTL, @PHI, @MTL, @CBJ
Games Against Bottom of West – 1 (1H)	vCHI

Washington Capitals – 29-27-6 (64 PTS, .516 PTS%) – 20 games left – 7% Chance of Making The Playoffs

Games Against East WC Contenders – 6 (4H, 2A)	@NYI, vBUF, @PIT, vNYI (2), vFLA
Games Against East Top 6 – 6 (3H, 3A)	vNJ (2), @NYR, @TB, vNYR, @BOS
Games Against West Playoff Mix* – 1 (1A)	@LA
Games Against Bottom of East – 2 (1H, 1A)	vCBJ, @MTL
Games Against Bottom of West – 5 (2H, 3A)	@ANA, @SJ, vSTL, @MIN, vCHI

Detroit Red Wings – 29-26-6 (64 PTS, .542 PTS%) – 23 games left – 5% Chance of Making The Playoffs

Games Against East WC Contenders – 5 (4H, 1A)	@NYI, vFLA, vPIT (2), vBUF
Games Against East Top 6 – 6 (2H, 4A)	@BOS, vBOS, vCAR, @TOR, @CAR, @TB
Games Against West Playoff Mix* – 5 (3H, 2A)	vSEA, vCOL, @NSH, @WPG, vDAL
Games Against Bottom of East – 3 (3A)	@PHI (2), @MTL
Games Against Bottom of West – 3 (2H, 1A)	vCHI, @STL, vSTL

Ottawa Senators – 29-26-4 (62 PTS, .525 PTS%) – 23 games left – 4% Chance of Making The Playoffs

Games Against East WC Contenders – 4 (2H, 2A)	vPIT, vFLA, @FLA, @BUF
Games Against East Top 6 – 9 (5H, 4A)	@NYR, vTOR (2), @BOS, vTB (2), @NJ, @CAR, vCAR
Games Against West Playoff Mix* – 4 (1H, 3A)	@SEA, @CGY, @EDM, vCOL
Games Against Bottom of East – 3 (1H, 2A)	vCBJ, @PHI, @CBJ
Games Against Bottom of West – 2 (2A)	@CHI, @VAN

February 28 Scores for reference since they’re omitted from the schedule tables:

CBJ 5 – BUF 3

FLA 4 – TB 1

OTT 6 – DET 1

MIN 2 – NYI 1 (F/SO)

PIT 3 – NSH 1