The Pre-Game: Buffalo Sabres

Rangers:

- It looks like Steve Valiquette is going to get the nod tonight. With back to back games, Tom Renney has decided to start Henrik Lundqvist tomorrow night in Ottawa. Vally played a great game against OV and the Caps last week, hopefully he can come up big tonight against the likes of Thomas Vanek, Derek Roy, anda Jason Pominville.

-Lauri Korpikoski is going to play alongside Dubi and Zherdev tonight. It looks like Aaron Voros may have had his lost shot at being a regular fixture in the lineup. He really just doesn't have a spot on this team at the moment. Voros skates with concrete in his skates and it looks like his tear in begining of the season was just a flash in the pan. If Freddy Sjostrom wasn't such a solid PKiller i'd say put him on the fourth line, but that just isn't the case.

- Hopefully the Rangers continue to crash the net the way they did against the Canadians. For a team that lacks a true finisher, I don't know why they have been so shy in front of the oppositions net for almost the entire season. It doesn't take much to create a scoring chance, put bodies in front the net, take a shot, dig for the rebound that may follow.

-It will be interesting to see if the Dawes-Drury-Prucha combo continues to excel together. The past few games they've been the Rangers most productive line.

-Michal Rozsival has really picked up play lately. In his last seven games he has 5 goals and 2 assists. I had a suspicion that his piss poor play in the begining of the season was more attributed to his off-season surgery than anything else. Maybe I was right.

-Let's be realistic, Wade Redden will always be a bust and the only contract signing that may be worst in the past 20 years in NY is the Yankees signing of Carl Pavano. But with that being said, he has slowly improved is play over the last 10 games or so. It would be a nice pick me up for the team if he can start doing is f'ing job and get on the score sheet every once in a while. In his last 16 games, he has a grand total of 6 helpers. Way to go Red.

- The Rangers need to pick up a win to keep pace with the Flyers. Luckily the Devils got man handled by the Ilya Kovalchuk (here) and his door mat Thrashers. But they're still right on our asses.

Buffalo Sabres:

-The Rangers need to keep Thomas Vanek and Derek Roy off the score sheet. Roy has 7 points in his last three game, including 3 goals. Vanek is tied with Jeff Carter and AO for the league lead in goals with 27. It always seems like Vanek lights up the Rangers. Go get him Vally.

-The Sabres are currently on a 3 game winning streak. Ryan Miller who will get the start tonight, has a 1.67 GAA in that span.

-It's too bad the human highlight reel got sent back to Portland. I was hoping to get a chance to watch Nathan Gerbe play. He caught an unlucky break and was injured after being up for only 6 games. He'll be back though.

-The Rangers need to play a solid 60 minutes of hockey. Regardless of all the b.s. against the Canadians they slowed down the pace in the third period. They can't let the Sabres control the tempo of the game by taking penalties again at crucial parts during the game.