Game Day No. 18

The Bucks begin their three-in-three of the season tonight as they host the Rio Grande Valley Killer Bees in the teams' fifth matchup of the season.

My preview for tonight's game focuses on the newest scoring lines and how they are helping distribute the offense more evenly across the board rather than putting all the pressure on that top line.

The Bucks (12-5-0, 24 points) coulc improve their lead in the Southeast Division to three points with a win over the Killer Bees (8-5-2, 18) tonight, and adding to their lead is definitely something they'd like to do before facing the Texas Brahmas (11-6-1, 23) on Saturday.

For more information on tonight's game, you can read Bryan Benway's preview, Killer Bees Vice President of Communications Rich Bocchini's game notes and the Poinstreak pre-game notes.

Brian Sandalow posted his weekly rankings yesterday and has put the Bucks back on top. We'll see if the meeting between the Bucks and Brahmas on Saturday reinforces that thought or changes his mind completely.

The other CHL games tonight have the Wichita Thunder in Louisiana to take on the Bossier-Shreveport Mudbugs and meet up with Travis Clayton for the first time since he left them, while the Arizona Sundogs are in Corpus Christi to take on the IceRays before heading to Laredo for tomorrow night's game against the Bucks.

Last Night's Score: Rocky Mountain Rage 3, Rapid City Rush 1.

NHL Scores: New York Rangers 3, Pittsburgh Penguins 2 (SO); Ottawa Senators 5, Atlanta Thrashers 1; Minnesota Wild 4, St. Louis Blues 0; Chicago Blackhawks 4, Anaheim Ducks 2; Edmonton Oilers 5, Dallas Stars 2.

By the way, Sidney Crosby has overcome the 250,000 or so illegal votes obtained by the Montreal Canadiens' forwards to become the top All-Star vote getter among forwards in the Eastern Conference...actually, he has the most of all forwards. Woot.

Sean Avery met with Gary Bettman for three hours today, but his punishment has yet to be announced.

Tonight's NHL games have the Penguins at the Carolina Hurricanes, the New Jersey Devils at the Philadelphia Flyers, the New York Islanders at the Washington Capitals, the Rangers at the Montreal Canadiens, the Boston Bruins at the Tampa Bay Lightning, the Vancouver Canucks at the Detroit Red Wings, the Buffalo Sabres at the Florida Panthers, the Colorado Avalanche at the Nashville Predators, the Toronto Maple Leafs at the Phoenix Coyotes and the Columbus Blue Jackets at the San Jose Sharks.