These deltas are significant. When Buffalo’s playing a playoff team – effectively 15 of the 16 best teams in the NHL – they look like a lottery team, with 47 percent of the shots and goals, and 44 percent of scoring chances at 5-on-5.

When they are playing a team apparently headed for the draft lottery, those numbers reverse: They outshoot and outscore their competition fairly emphatically, and their scoring chances are at least much closer to break even.

Season to date, Buffalo has accumulated 25 points in 25 games against these playoff teams, which doesn’t seem all that bad. But it’s also heavily boosted by some of their early season performance. Over the last 10 games – and really through the six-week stretch we are talking about here – Buffalo has managed just five points, which has not only helped to sink them in the standings, but has reallocated those game points to other playoff competitors that are separately jockeying for playoff position.

I’m not sure Sabres fans care as much about playoff seeding as simply making the postseason in a year when they figured to be on the outside looking in. At any rate, Buffalo’s situation is much more precarious today than it was just a short time ago.