"It will be up to Thomas Vanek, not his boss, to decide whether his injured left ankle can withstand the abuse that is guaranteed to come its way tonight at TD Garden if the Buffalo winger dresses for Game 6.

"He's close now,'' Sabres coach Lindy Ruff told Buffalo reporters yesterday at HSBC Arena. "It's his decision whether he can play or not. I don't know how he feels. In conversations with him, I think he understood that he didn't think he'd be able to make a difference. He wanted to play. But the way he felt, he might have been putting himself in a bad spot.''"