It will be the 8^th playoff meeting between Philadelphia and Buffalo. The Sabres have won only 2 of the seven series.

The last week of the season was a wild and crazy ride for the Sabres, who beat the Montreal Canadiens in back-to-back games and then finished off with two straight shutouts.

April 12, 2006 - The Sabres came out and played a solid 60 minutes of hockey, beating the Canadiens 3-1. They were forechecking, hitting and making excellent passes. Buffalo took a 2-0 lead after the first period, but the Canadiens got one back early in the second to make it a game again. However, Ryan Miller looks like he's back to his old pre-Olympic self as he was stellar in the nets, especially in the second period.

The win gave the Sabres 49 for the season, which tied a franchise record.

Ryan Miller seems to finally have shaken whatever caused him to falter in the weeks after the Olympic break. Miller was one of the hottest goalies in the NHL before the break, but then he fell flat on his face for a month before finally getting his act back together this week. First, he beat the Senators in Ottawa, allowing 2 goals. Then Wednesday night, he allowed only one as the Sabres shut down the Habs.

April 15, 2006 - Miller was even better the next game as he had to survive an onslaught of 18 bullets in the second period as he kept the Sabres in the game. With his stellar performance, the Sabres won their second of two straight games with Montreal. Miller made 43 saves and was definitely the game's first star in the Sabres 4-2 win in Montreal.

The Sabres seemed to have things under control in the first period. They took a 1-0 lead against the Canadiens on nifty move by Maxim Afinogenov and Ryan Miller was back to his old form on the other end of the ice.

Then the two teams took the ice for the second period and it was like day and night. The Habs swarmed all over Miller, who practically had to stand on his head while they peppered him with 18 shots. The Sabres got into penalty trouble, but Miller bailed them out time after time. When the Sabres had two men in the box, Miller did all he could to keep the Habs off the boards, but finally they connected and tied it up as Michael Ryder got it past Miller. Then just 45 seconds later, the Habs took their first lead in the game when Komisarek got one five hole through Miller.

April 16, 2006 - Miller finally got his first shutout of the season. It took him almost the entire season, but the wait was worth it as Miller was stellar in goal, helping the Sabres beat the Leafs 6-0. Miller has played 4 good games in a row and he got plenty of help from the offense.

Miller had come close to getting shutouts all year, but would always seem to allow a goal near the end that would ruin his bid. As the clock got closer to zero, the fans would hold their breath as the Leafs came storming in on Miller. Toronto had plenty of chances, especially Darcy Tucker, who the fans booed every time he touched the puck.

Tucker was the one who put Jochen Hecht out for the season with a well-timed knee-on-knee hit on the Sabres forward. A lot of fans were hoping that the Sabres would take Tucker out in retaliation for his cheap shot on Hecht. But the Sabres had a much better way to extract revenge...on the scoreboard. Beating Toronto 6-0 almost evened out that horrific 7-0 loss in Toronto the other week. It was one goal short of that mark, but I guess one can't be choosy.

The best way the fans could have gotten their lust for revenge would be to point at the scoreboard when Tucker skated off the ice for the last time this season.

The Sabres didn't extract revenge on Darcy Tucker...they had better things to do, like win a hockey game. And win they did, BIG TIME! The Sabres stomped the Leafs and then burned them for good measure as they won 6-0 in front of a sold out arena populated by an equal turnout of both sides.

The Sabres couldn't care less about the runt Tucker, who tried his best to pervoke Thomas Vanek, at the end of the second period. Vanek is probably about Tucker's size but isn't much of a fighter. There had been some fear by the NHL that the Sabres would try to get revenge for Tucker's blatant hit on Jochen Hecht that knocked the Sabres forward out of the season.

For the most part, the Sabres only concern about Tucker was to prevent him from scoring. Ryan Miller took care of that and then some as he posted his first shutout of the season, making 31 saves and looking sharp doing it.

Chris Drury scored two goals, both on powerplays, and the other scoring was divided between Brian Campbell, Paul Gaustad, Jason Pominville and Vanek. The team picked it up defensively near the end of the game to protect Miller's shutout. Miller, has been playing very solid the past week after a month funk. Now he appears ready for the post season.

The Buffalo Sabres finished off the season in spectacular fashion, winning their second straight shutout, this time a 4-0 triumph against the first place Carolina Hurricanes. By beating the Canes, the Sabres did the Ottawa Senators a favor, as they were able to secure home ice advantage straight through to the Conference championship.

The Sabres ended the regular season as one of the hottest teams in the league. They weren't the hottest, that goes to the Devils who won 11 straight. The Sabres were not sure who their first round opponent would be as the Devils were behind 3-1 to the Habs. But then the Devils staged a torrid comeback and won 4-3 in regulation. Because of this, the Sabres will host the Philadelphia Flyers Saturday night to open the first round.

Meanwhile, the Sabres took care of business, winning their second straight shutout, beating the Hurricanes 4-0. Marty Biron got his first shutout of the season, the Sabres second straight as Ryan Miller had one the game before against the Leafs.

The Sabres closed the season by winning 5 straight. Their last lost, ironically, was a 4-2 defeat to the Flyers. Before that game, they had won two straight, so in their last 8 games, they won seven of them.

The current brand of the Buffalo Sabres are being compared favorably to the Golden Years of the Blue & Gold. The Sabres finished with 52 victories and 110 points. Only two seasons did they get to the 110 point mark or more (113 points in 1974-75 and 110 points in 1979-80).

The Sabres of old had such great scorers as Rene Robert, Gil Perreault and Rico Martin on the French Connection to go along with Danny Gare, Don Luce and Craig Ramsey. They also had Roger Crozer and Dave Dryden in goal.

This year's team is almost as explosive with the likes of Danny Briere, Maxim Afinogenov, Tim Connolly, Jochen Hecht, Chris Drury and a whole bunch of others. Now all this team has to do is to push far into the playoffs and the team will certainly be associated with the best ever to skate on Buffalo ice.

The Buffalo Sabres of 2006 are an untested group of mostly kids who have never been in the playoffs before. Just what can be expected of them is anyone's guess. I kind of compare them to the 1997 team coached by Ted Nolan when they won the Northeast Division, their first division title in 16 years. That was a team composed of a lot of young players with some veterans like Pat LaFontaine, Dominik Hasek and a few others.

This year's team brings a lot of excitement to the game and maybe this is their year to do some damage in the playoffs.

During the summer, this writer was among the many who believed that the Sabres weren't going to do much this season. They had let go two of their top players, Miroslav Satan and Alexei Zhitnik for not even a bag of used pucks. To top that off, they acquired a couple of "has been" over the hill defensemen to "replentish" their D.

I felt that it would be a stretch that the Sabres would make the playoffs, in fact I predicted they would be worse than their last season.

The Sabres were probably the biggest surprise of the NHL this year along with the Carolina Hurricanes. Winning 52 games and amassing 110 points was a feat not even the most avid Sabres fan would have anticipated.

The Sabres won the series this season against the Flyers and the won the last two out of three playoff series against the Flyers. However, the last time the two teams clashed, the Flyers employed a similar style that the Devils use against the Sabres to slow down their speed game. This is how the Flyers hope to contain the high octane Sabres offense.

Buffalo has a lot of youth on its team and not too many have ever played in the Stanley Cup playoffs before. That’s an advantage Flyers. On the Sabres side, they have much more speed than the Flyers and hope to exploit the slower Philly defense.

This series could go the limit as the two different styled teams try to exploit each other’s weakness.

     HOME           SEASON'S RESULTS      SABRE TALK MESSAGE BOARD      NEWSROOM      99 PLAYOFFS    
THE PLAYERS      STATISTICS      SCHEDULE      PROSPECTS      LIVE GAME RADIO      HISTORY      TEAM INFO     
PHOTO GALLERY     MULTIMEDIA      SABRES POLL      TROPHY CASE      LINKS      THE STAFF      E-MAIL SABRESWORD

Copyright © 2006 Sabres Central, all rights reserved