Quoting: Sabresfuturecupwinners
There's no moral victories anymore... If we're going to be a playoff team we need to pull these games off in dominating fashion. Shouldn't have ever been this close. I'll enjoy a win if we beat Arizona and one of Washington or Boston
Lets just put our realist hats on for a moment (full disclosure I'm a Bruins fan).
In the Atlantic the big 3 are Tampa, Toronto & Boston.
Ottawa & Detroit are rebuilding teams
^This leave us with Buffalo/Montreal/Florida.
Florida (Last in the division) - You have a 12 point lead over them and they are one of, if not the most dependent teams on PP scoring. They need a lot of things to go right in order to turn things around
Montreal (5th in the division) - They still have to face TOR/TBL/BOS a combined 8 times on the year and so far their 1-2-2 against those teams. They still have a game vs Buffalo and they've all been 1 goals games
In the metro you figure WSH/PIT take 2 of the 3 spots with Columbus being the 3rd. That leaves probably the Islanders & Carolina as the other team bubble playoffs teams (assuming Carolina doesn't sell because of the struggles).
Points are points and the Kings are a western conference team, so its not like them getting a point hurts you. Teams have bad games, hell we've lost to Florida 5-0 the other night. Buffalo should be in a good spot, but again you're a young team and even if you do make the playoffs, it'll be a tall order to make it deep. I'd say that right now Buffalo is at least 2 years from being a serious contender. They have some good peices in place, they just need to get experience and keep building around their young core.