Boston Bruins Will Face Off Against Buffalo Sabres in First Round

The No. 6 seed Boston Bruins will square off against the Northeast Division champion and No. 3 seed Buffalo Sabres in the first round of the Eastern Conference playoffs.

Boston won four of the six regular-season meetings against Buffalo. Here is a preview for the first-round series:

Goaltending: 

This is going to be one matchup worth watching. Tuukka Rask is likely to get the start in net for Boston, and he deserves it.

Despite only playing in 45 games this season, he finished first in the NHL in goals against average (1.97) and save percentage (.931). The Bruins will face off against Ryan Miller, one of the best goalies in the league. The Sabres' goalie finished second in the NHL in both GAA and save percentage (2.22, .929). Miller also finished fourth in wins with 41.

Boston is deeper at goaltending. They have Rask and their backup is Tim Thomas, the reigning Vezina Trophy winner.

One thing to point out: Rask has no NHL playoff experience.

As for Thomas, he does have experience, but he has won a playoff series just once, which was against the Montreal Canadiens in the first round in last season's playoffs. Ryan Miller's record against the Bruins this season is 2-0-2.

However, if Ryan Miller plays like Ryan Miller, watch out.  

Scoring:

The Bruins finished last in the NHL in scoring with 2.39 goals per game. Boston no longer has that go-to-guy like a Phil Kessel, who scored 36 goals for the Bruins last season.

Marc Savard will probably miss the series because of a concussion.

Boston only has one scorer who finished with 20 or more goals. Marco Sturm is the team leader with 22 goals. Petrice Bergeron finished second with 19 goals. Mark Recchi, Michael Ryder and Blake Wheeler each finished with 18. Those players, as well as the rest of the Bruins, will have to step it up a notch.

The Sabres finished 10th in the league in scoring with 2.82 goals per game. Buffalo doesn't have any household names like an Alexander Ovechkin, Sidney Crosby, etc..

However, the Sabres are balanced when it comes to scoring goals, 12 players finishing in double figures. Thomas Vanek led the way for Buffalo with 28 goals with Derek Roy and Jason Pominville right behind Vanek with 26 and 24 goals respectively.

Defense:

Boston's goals allowed per game, or GA/G, is 2.33, which is second in the league, only behind New Jersey, who finished with 2.27 GA/G.

Buffalo's allowed 2.45 goals per game, which ranked fourth in the NHL. The Bruins defense will have their hands full with Dennis Seidenberg and Andrew Ference on the injury list. Defenseman Jeff Penner and Adam McQuaid have been called up from Providence to fill in for Seidenberg and Ference.

Power Play:

This is one of the keys to the Bruins' success in the playoffs. Even though the Bruins finished dead last in scoring, they managed to finish 23rd in the NHL on the man advantage. They scored 44 goals out of 265 chances, a mere 16.6 percent. If they want to get past Ryan Miller and company, they will have to improve on their power play chances.

Buffalo didn't do too well on the power play as well, scoring on 55 out of 313 chances, or 17.6 percent.

Penalty Kill: The Sabres and Bruins are right at the top when it comes to the penalty kill. Buffalo finished second in the league (88.6 percent) and Boston finished third (88.4 percent).

One other stat to point out about the Bruins: they won 52.6 percent of the face-offs, which they ended up finishing second in the NHL, only behind San Jose.