After 81 games played, Canada's two flagship hockey teams, the Montreal Canadiens and the Toronto Maple Leafs, will play their final match of the regular season Saturday night on Hockey Night in Canada. The long-running broadcast has had few games bigger than this one and the rivalry between the two clubs has seen few games carry as much importance as this one.

The game will be broadcast throughout Canada in English on CBC's Hockey Night in Canada and in French on RDS at 7 p.m., ET. Canadians who find themselves outside the country this holiday weekend are scrambling to catch the game, whether through the League's out-of-market Center Ice package in the United States (delivered via television or broadband), in Europe via rightsholder NASN (Europe's leading network for North American sports), or worldwide with NHL.com's free live radio broadcast, available in both of Canada's official languages.

Everything they play for will be on the line as both clubs need a victory in their final game of the season to advance to the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

The Easter holiday is on Sunday, but it stands to reason the entire country might just shut down the night before.

The winner might get into the tournament. The loser might go home for the summer, as the ramifications of the game will go far beyond the provincial borders of Ontario and Quebec.

Saturday's game marks the 682nd Canadiens-Maple Leafs regular-season meeting in 90 years of NHL competition. They have met in each team's last game of the regular season just once in the past 64 years and this time the stakes are unique; never have these franchises met in the season's final game with a playoff berth on the line for both.

Going into the final weekend of the regular season, the Eastern Conference playoff picture is still a work in progress. Three teams -- the Canadiens, Leafs and the New York Islanders -- are all still fighting for the eighth and final playoff spot in the East.

This weekend's action offers a myriad of playoff-clinching scenarios for the final Eastern Conference playoff berth:

Montreal Canadiens

* Would qualify for the playoffs with a victory Saturday.

* Would qualify for the playoffs with an overtime loss Saturday and the Islanders dropping a point in either of their final two games, at Philadelphia Saturday afternoon and at New Jersey Sunday afternoon.

Toronto Maple Leafs

* Would qualify for the playoffs with a regulation victory Saturday and the Islanders dropping a point in either of their final two games, at Philadelphia Saturday afternoon and at New Jersey Sunday afternoon.

New York Islanders

* Would qualify for the playoffs with victories at Philadelphia Saturday afternoon and at New Jersey Sunday afternoon and the Canadiens losing at Toronto in regulation Saturday.

Read the rest of the article here (by Evan Grossman | NHL.com Staff Writer)