The Buffalo Sabres have one more home game before they hit the road for the first time this season.They would like nothing better than to make it three wins in a row Thursday night when they host the Colorado Avalanche at KeyBank Center.It will conclude a four-game homestand that opened the Sabres’ season. They will play their next five games on the road.Article continues below ...After hearing boos when they dropped their season opener 4-0 to the Boston Bruins on Oct. 4 William Karlsson Jersey , they have defeated the New York Rangers 3-1 on Saturday and the Vegas Golden Knights 4-2 on Monday.Jack Eichel, 21, the Sabres’ newly appointed captain, scored twice Monday to give Buffalo (2-1-0) more wins than losses for the first time since the third game of the lockout-shortened 2012-13 season. It had been 457 games, dating to Jan. 24, 2013, since Buffalo had more wins than losses.“The things you can control are your compete, your attitude and your work,” Eichel said. “If we do that and stick together and compete for each other, I think there’s a lot of good things that can happen. … I like the direction in which our group is going right now.”The Avalanche (2-1-0) lost 5-2 to the Columbus Blue Jackets on Tuesday in their first road game of the season. Colorado will try to come out with more jump from the start at Buffalo.“I don’t want to take anything away from Columbus, because they had a good first period,” Avalanche coach Jared Bednar said. “But we stood around. We weren’t ready to start. So, when you stand around, it’s pretty easy to move the puck around you. It’s also the reason why we had three penalties in five, six minutes of the first period. When you’re not moving your legs, and not skating, teams are going to move it around and you’re going to take penalties. That’s what happened.”Philipp Grubauer made his first start in goal for Colorado, with Semyon Varlamov, who had started the two wins Alex Ovechkin Jersey Kids , backing up. Varlamov is likely to start Thursday.After falling behind 2-0 in the first period Tuesday, the Avalanche tied the game before the Blue Jackets regained control with three third-period goals, including one into an empty net.“Second period was great,” said Grubauer, who allowed four goals on 34 shots. “First one and third one, that’s where we ran into some trouble. You play the right way in the second (but) you have to play the right way for 60 minutes, not one period.”The Avalanche must be prepared to play a Sabres team that is willing to work with Eichel leading the way.“He’s made a commitment to do it every day, not just when we’re under the bright lights,” Sabres right winger Kyle Okposo said of Eichel. “He’s done a really good job in practice of setting the tone and setting the pace. He’s the best player on our team and if he’s the hardest worker every day, the team is going to follow him.”“It’s really, really early but we’ve put in the work throughout the summer and in training camp,” Sabres right winger Jason Pominville said. “It’s a different vibe, a different atmosphere. It’s definitely nice to be able to get the start that we have had for sure.”Sabres defenseman Zach Bogosian (lower-body injury) skated with the team Wednesday for the first time since he was injured Sept. 25 and will need more practice time before he returns to the lineup.Centers Vladimir Sobotka (upper body), who was injured in the season opener, and Johan Larsson (lower body), who has not played this season, have returned to practice but coach Phil Housley said their status has not been determined for Thursday.Avalanche defenseman Patrik Nemeth (upper body) will return to the lineup Thursday and center Vladislav Kamenev will probably make his season debut. Nemeth was injured in the season opener Oct. 4 against the Minnesota Wild.Kamenev was recalled by the Avalanche Sunday after playing two games with the Colorado Eagles of the American Hockey League. Kamenev has five games of NHL experience, three with the Avalanche last season after being acquired in a trade with the Nashville Predators Nov. 5. He missed 50 games in 2017-18 with a broken arm.“It is a good time to give him an opportunity,” Bednar said. “He’s played a couple games over the weekend Braden Holtby Jersey , he’s been up and practiced for a few days and is energized and ready to go.” NEWARK, N.J. (AP) The worst season in nearly three decades is just a recent memory, and so is the five-year drought.The New Jersey Devils are back in the playoffs, and again in the hunt for the Stanley Cup. It’s like old times.The Devils completed a remarkable comeback season by beating the Toronto Maple Leafs 2-1 on Thursday night to clinch their first postseason berth since making it to the Stanley Cup Finals in 2012.It capped an offseason and regular season that saw general manager Ray Shero reshape half his 25-man roster through free agency, the draft and trades and have John Hynes make all the right moves to keep his team in a playoff position every day of the season.Not bad for a club that won 28 games and finished last in the Eastern Conference in 2016-17.”This is the best, the best,” said veteran defenseman Ben Lovejoy, who won a Stanley Cup with Pittsburgh in 2016. ”My first stint in Pittsburgh and Anaheim and then again in Pittsburgh, I never appreciated what baseball players did. I thought it was stupid when they would come in and have champagne when they made the playoffs. I get it now. Making the playoffs is hard.”The Devils can point to so many players in bouncing back from their worst season since 1988-89. Taylor Hall (39 goals, 54 assists) had a career year that teammates feel merits the Hart Trophy as the league MVP. Top draft pick Nico Hischier overcame a slow start to have 19 goals and 51 points. Free agent Will Butcher set a team record for rookie defensemen with 44 points.The unsung hero was goaltender Keith Kinkaid, who stepped for an injured Cory Schneider and carried the team over the final 10 weeks, going 10-1-1 in the last 12 games and helping the New York-metropolitan area avoid being shut out of the postseason for the first time since the Devils took up residence in New Jersey in 1982. The Rangers and Islanders will miss the postseason.”It’s fun, but playoffs are a new breed,” said Kinkaid, who re-signed with the team in the offseason despite being an unrestricted free agent.There are only two players left from the Devils’ 2011-12 team: defenseman and captain Andy Greene, and Travis Zajac, who centers the line Hynes’ uses against the opponent’s top line.While there have been lean years, Zajac said the Devils rediscovered themselves this season. They practiced and played hard, and made sure opponents knew they were in for a battle every game.The results have been a 44-28-9 record that includes a 25-8-9 mark in one-goal games. It was a record that reminded many of the old Devils Youth Christian Djoos Jersey , a franchise that made the playoffs 20 of 22 times and won three Cups between 1989-90 and 2011-12.This group, however, skates faster and is relentless.Last year, the Devils were disappointing underachievers. Their biggest sin was failing to compete every night. And they paid the price, especially down the stretch when they went 3-17-4.Hynes and Shero changed that. It started with the roster makeover that included the signing of veteran Brian Boyle, and an attitude readjustment.”It’s a different skill set and youth,” said Shero, who also strengthened the team during the season by acquiring defenseman Sami Vatanen and forwards Michael Grabner and Patrick Maroon in trades. ”But they had to fight, they clawed and scraped to get what they’ve got and they’ve earned it.”With a game to play, the Devils won’t learn their first-round opponent until Saturday at the earliest. They are the top wild-card team in the Eastern Conference, and they will at least stay there if they win at Washington on Saturday night. They also could go up or down depending on what Columbus, Philadelphia, Florida and Pittsburgh do.It really doesn’t matter. The Devils are just looking forward to the postseason.”You go into this year thinking it’s going to be a bigger challenge,” said Boyle, who provided inspiration by overcoming cancer early in the season. ”Plenty of people were writing us off. It makes it pretty sweet to clinch. I have just tried to tell everyone: `It’s going to be so much fun. You have never played hockey this fun in your life until you play playoff hockey.”’—