NHL: The Race is on for Boston, Buffalo, and Philadelphia

By the end of Good Friday, the Boston Bruins could find themselves in eighth place in the Eastern Conference, tied with the surging Buffalo Sabres.

Boston (37-28-9), in seventh place with 83 points at the start of the day, is idle.

The Philadelphia Flyers (36-28-10) and Sabres (35-28-11) are in action on Friday, with the Flyers entertaining the New York Rangers and Buffalo hosting Toronto.

Philadelphia is a point back of Boston, and Buffalo is two back.

Oddly enough, the Rangers have won 11 of their last 12 visits to the Wachovia Center in Philadelphia, and backup Stephen Valiquette has two shutouts there this season.

The Flyers barely hung on to beat the Atlanta Thrashers for the tenth straight time in their series on Tuesday, ending a four-game losing streak.

The Flyers had to survive a last-minute scare as the Thrashers threatened late, despite Philadelphia out-playing the visitors big time throughout the game.

Philadelphia out-shot Atlanta 47-19 and skated away with the 3-2 win, with Flyers goaltender Antero Nittymaki coming up huge with a clutch save on Ilya Kovalchuk as time wound down.

Despite going through a 10-game losing streak in February, the Flyers still seem playoff bound if they can finish strong the rest of the way.

Meanwhile, the Sabres also endured a scare of their own in their previous game before making a huge third-period rally, seemingly rescuing their season.

On Wednesday, the Sabres looked dead when they fell behind the Tampa Bay Lightning, the worst team in the Eastern Conference.

Vincent Lecavalier's second goal with under two minutes left in the second period—his 39th of the year—gave the Lightning a 4-1 lead. The Sabres went to the dressing room down by three after 40 minutes.

And yet the Sabres fought back, scoring a pair of goals 16 seconds apart early in the final stanza before the Thomas Vanek show began.

Vanek ran off three straight goals—the tying, go-ahead, and insurance marker—and Buffalo rallied for an improbable 7-4 triumph.

The Sabres go for their fourth win in a row Friday against the Maple Leafs, who will probably be without leading scorer Mats Sundin (groin injury).

As for the idle Bruins, they will take on the Montreal Canadiens on Saturday night at the Bell Centre.

The Bruins have only two wins in their last ten. Both victories were due to late, third-period rallies.  The team have lost ten straight games, a streak going back to last season, to the Canadiens.

Boston has had trouble scoring goals all season long. They need solid goaltending to have a chance at winning.

No. 1 goalie Tim Thomas just can't beat the Canadiens, and has played poorly in his last five appearances, allowing an average of more than 4.5 goals a game. This is not the kind of goaltending to get it done, considering the Bruins' lack of offense the entire year.

Meanwhile, whenever backup Alex Auld has been in the nets lately, the Bruins have been in it before ultimately losing in shootouts or overtime—three times in Auld's last five starts.

Montreal's leading scorer Alexei Kovalev burned the Bruins for a pair of goals on Thursday and has seven in seven games against Boston this year, while the Bruins leading point-getter, Marc Savard, has not found the net since February 19th. He is goalless versus the Habs.

Regardless, the Bruins will have to wait and watch what happens on Good Friday.

They will be seventh or eighth by the end of the night. And even if Buffalo manages to outlast Toronto and ties the Bruins in points, Boston owns the tie-breaker for now, since they have won more games.