The set-up:The 16-15-9 Buffalo Sabres look to continue their recent strong play, as they take on the 19-19-4 Tampa Bay Lightning. The Sabres beat Philadelphia 4-1 on Tuesday, improving to 3-0-1 in January, and hope to hand the Lightning a season-high fifth consecutive loss in tonight's game in Tampa.

Buffalo: The Sabres have been a different team since the calendar turned to January and hope to keep up the positive mojo."We want to be a relentless, aggressive, fast, hard team to play against, that keeps coming at you for 60 minutes," Sabres coach Dan Bylsma said Wednesday. "That's when we're at our best. We're getting there." Buffalo is beginning to score more, with three players tied for the team lead at 27 points in right wing Kyle Okposo (team-best 12 goals), defenseman Rasmus Ristolainen (team-best 24 assists) and 21-year-old center Sam Reinhart, who has nine goals. However, the Sabres will be without goalie Robin Lehner, who is ill and didn't make the trip, so it's likely Anders Nilsson in net against Tampa Bay. That said, Nilsson did turn aside 39 shots in Tuesday's 4-1 win to improve his save percentage to .930.

Tampa Bay: The Lightning are at the other extreme, struggling defensively in front of goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy, who started 10 straight games since Ben Bishop was sidelined. Tampa Bay went 4-1-1 in the first six, but has lost the last four. Bishop is expected to return either Thursday or Friday against the red-hot Columbus Blue Jackets.The Lightning's struggles on defense are real and may need to be addressed before the trade deadline. They ranked fifth in the NHL with 2.41 goals allowed per game in reaching the Eastern finals last year but this year they've dropped to 25th, allowing 2.98, despite largely the same lineup in goal and on the blue line.

The pick: I'll go "contrarian" in this one and look for teh under-achieving Lightning to beat the over-achieving Sabres. Make Tampa Bay an 8* play.