i along with many other sabres fans can appreciate how leafs fans feel when toronto plays buffalo. post lockout (2004) the sabres are 26-8-0-1 against the leafs in regular season play winning 10 straight so far. with the sens winning tonight, ottawa is 25-6-1-3 against the sabres in regular season play and just notched their 9th straight. we're even for the playoffs during that same period of time with each team taking a series. however seeing how ottawa has been doing so well when they play the sabres, i am hoping we don't meet them in the first round and even the 2nd. actually out of all the teams in the eastern conference who look to be close, or are close to heading into the playoffs, i'm the most afraid of ottawa because they just have had our number for so long. i think they have some sort of curse on us. washington and pittsburgh are scary for different reasons. i don't necessarily dread playing them because they have more skilled talent... so if we get blown out by ovechkin and the caps, i wouldn't be surprised. when we have played them though, we've done well and have won games. i think if we play our system, roll 4 lines with timely offense we might do pretty well playing most teams. there aren't many squads that can match our depth, but we are also smaller compared to other teams and can get pushed around easier. if we get into a battle of player conditioning, i think our depth will help out more since our style is to use speed to pester and grind down opponents. all of this goes out the window against the senators though. it just doesn't work. with the standings today, we will play montreal and ottawa will play pittsburgh. if that ends up being the final seeding, i will be hoping the pens can eliminate the sens. in the meantime... atlanta's 9 points behind ottawa and are 9th in the conference with a game in hand and 8 to play. i normally wouldn't support teams south of pennsylvania, but in this case... i'm hoping for a thrasher win streak and an epic collapse by the senators.