Game On! Boston Bruins Will Still Play Sabres Tonight

After further testing and contact tracing, the Boston Bruins will indeed play the Buffalo Sabres tonight in Buffalo at 7:08 PM ET.

UPDATE: After further testing and contact tracing, as of now, tonight’s game against the Buffalo Sabres will go on as scheduled.

— Boston Bruins (@NHLBruins) March 18, 2021

After the Bruins and Sabres canceled their game-day skates Thursday morning due to a Boston Bruins player being put on the NHL’s COVID Protocol List, a team source has told Boston Hockey Now that their game in Buffalo tonight (7:05 PM ET) is ‘On hold for now.’

UPDATE: Today’s pregame skate at KeyBank Center in Buffalo, NY has been cancelled due to a Bruins player entering the league’s COVID-19 protocols.

— Boston Bruins (@NHLBruins) March 18, 2021

About 20 minutes after that tweet by the Boston Bruins, longtime NHL employee and then analyst John Shannon tweeted that the game was postponed but then minutes later, Boston Hockey Now Lead Boston Bruins Lead Reporter and Columnist Joe Haggerty tweeted that the game was still on and the team was awaiting their rapid COVID tests still before any determination would be made on the game. Shannon deleted his original tweet and then tweeted that the league had changed course and the game ‘was still a go’.

League/team source changes course.

At this point, Boston v Buffalo is still a go!

Apologies.

— John Shannon (@JShannonhl) March 18, 2021

Soon after that tweet, a team source told BHN this via text: ‘Everything is on hold for now.’

So as of 12:10 PM ET, that is where things stood regarding the Boston Bruins game against the Sabres at the KeyBank Arena in Buffalo tonight but alas the two teams will meet for the first of eight games against each other this season and the first of a two-game set that concludes in Buffalo Saturday in a 1 PM ET matinee.

The Bruins might be running into the most motivated Sabres squad of what has been an absolutely abysmal season for them. After going 0-9-1 in their last ten games and falling to 6-18-4 (16 pts), the last place Sabres fired head coach Ralph Krueger on Wednesday and made Don Granato the interim head coach. In most cases, teams approach the game after their head coach was fired with much more urgency and as a playoff game. So, the Bruins will need that near 60-minute effort they got in a 2-1 win over the Pittsburgh Penguins on Tuesday night and more solid goaltending from either Jaro Halak or Dan Vladar.