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Pregame coles notes:

– 3 regulation wins in the last 25 games for the Leafs. That has to change tonight.
– Jonathan Bernier starts for the Leafs after stopping 39 of 40 shots vs. the Rangers.
– No real changes to the lineup from Monday’s loss to the Rangers: Paul Ranger stays in beside Morgan Rielly, Liles and Fraser sit.
– Randy Carlyle says he likes the strength and “power” to Ranger’s game, meaning “Power Ranger” can now be a thing.
– No Cody Hodgson for the Sabres, who is out for another couple of weeks after hurting himself blocking a shot.
– Ryan Miller starts in net. He sports a 31-15-1 record and .922 save percentage in his career vs. Toronto.
– Sabres rookie Zemgus Girgensons has three goals and three assists in his past nine games.
– Buffalo remains the worst team in the league but have gone 4-4-2 in their last ten. Mostly because their goals against are down lately. Ryan Miller is heating up ((2-0-0, 1.45, .959 in last 2 GP).
– The Sabres are averaging a hideous 1.68 goals per game. The last team to finish below 2 per game on average was the Lightning in 1997-98 with a 1.84 GF/G.
Ted Nolan has stated his intention to put John Scott in front of Jonathan Bernier on the powerplay tonight. Bernier will have to peer around him and tune out all the guttural grunting.

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Alec Brownscombe is the founder and editor of MapleLeafsHotStove.com, where he has written daily about the Leafs since September of 2008. He's published five magazines on the team entitled "The Maple Leafs Annual" with distribution in Chapters and newsstands across the country. He also co-hosted "The Battle of the Atlantic," a weekly show on TSN1200 that covered the Leafs and the NHL in-depth. Alec is a graduate of Trent University and Algonquin College with his diploma in Journalism. In 2014, he was awarded Canada's Best Hockey Blogger honours by Molson Canadian. You can contact him at alec.brownscombe@mapleleafshotstove.com.