Coming into the weekend, the Sabres had a less than 1 percent chance of making the playoffs.

But they won on Saturday afternoon against an extremely good Carolina team. Technically, though hope is so faint as to be near-invisible, that's still picking your shoulder up off the mat at 2.999 ad infinitum, and the match continues.

And to be clear, Buffalo was not supposed to be here at this point in the season. The Ottawa Senators, in the same division, were the team that declared its tank over and, and that the winning would begin this season. But the Senators were eliminated from playoff contention last Thursday, and the season felt like it was on life support long before that.

The Sabres, on the other hand, mostly keep winning. In late March, they snapped a skid of 2-8-2 that put their season