Sabres Eliminated From Playoffs

by David Oleksy on Apr 9, 2009 11:16 PM EDT

I sat here for a couple of hours thinking about how I was going to sum up the Sabres season in this post. We all know the season has only one game left after the New York Rangers officially eliminated the Sabres by beating the Flyers 2-1 at Madison Square Garden.

I decided that I'm not going to write that post tonight because we have the next couple of months to talk about everything that went wrong for the Sabres and what they need to do differently. Tonight is about a dominating effort, in a hostile environment, against the hottest team in the league.

Although it was a dominating performance by the Sabres, they needed a little bit of luck as well to beat the Canes 5-1. The Sabres generated almost no offense in the first period but managed a perfect 2-on-1 with Tim Connolly and Jason Pominville and Pominville rifled it over the shoulder of Cam Ward.

The second period was all Sabres as they forced the play and simply outworked the Canes. Matt Ellis scored the Sabres second goal and it was a perfect example of the hard work the Sabres put in. Jochen Hecht scored for Buffalo and Jason Pominville scored his second to basically put the game away in the second period.

Derek Roy scored his 28th goal of the season on a penalty shot after he was hooked on a shorthanded power play. The Sabres were holding on to a 5-0 lead and tried desperately to get Ryan Miller a shutout but Eric Staal scored a power play goal with just 30 seconds left in the game.

Rangers Continue to Haunt the Sabres

It was a 4-2 Sabres win against the Rangers on February 21 that sidelined Ryan Miller for over a month and a 4-2 loss to the Rangers two weeks ago that put the Sabres playoff hopes on life support. Tonight it was a 2-1 New York Rangers victory that officially ended the Sabres season.

The Sabres beat the Rangers three of the four times they played them but in the end the Rangers had the last laugh.

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Up Next

The Sabres finish off the season with a home game against the Bruins. It is a special start time of 4PM on Saturday.

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Comments

My condolences...

fellas.

I know the feeling. All too well.

Sports And The City

A Toronto sports blog, where we unequivocally and unapologetically support the home team...

PLAYOFFS!!!!1

by eyebleaf on Apr 10, 2009 12:50 AM EDT reply actions

....

What a sad day. I really had hope. Just “brought it” a little too late.

Buffalo fans should coin the phrase “there’s always next year”.

by HO on Apr 10, 2009 8:29 AM EDT reply actions

Or, as what has been going around some message boards, there’s ONLY next year.

I must admit, despite my negative feelings about this team and the lack of hope I experienced over the last month or so, I definitely was on the edge of my seat watching the Rangers game as the Flyers tried like hell to come back in it and possibly extending the Sabs season a bit. Still, this team was too “consistently inconsistent” (there’s your season wrap up title D.O. free of chage ;)) and even if they did make the playoffs, there is no way they could string something together over a 4 game series so best to try to figure out how to fix this sucka without the sheen of the playoffs.

The population of Pominville keeps rising!

by Blackcapricorn on Apr 10, 2009 9:32 AM EDT up reply actions

can you expand....

“Or, as what has been going around some message boards, there’s ONLY next year.”

by HO on Apr 10, 2009 11:54 AM EDT up reply actions

Just that some people have been using that phrase meaning that the Sabs will never get over the hump with the current lineup/front office.

The population of Pominville keeps rising!

by Blackcapricorn on Apr 10, 2009 12:32 PM EDT up reply actions

ah

Now I understand.

by HO on Apr 10, 2009 12:54 PM EDT up reply actions

Oh well....

I’ll still watch them every year – just hope they make a splash or two in the offseason to try and upgrade the roster.

Spend some of that cash and get a star.

Stinks its over – but at least its warming up outside!

The rest of you go get the goods on Stan. His mom grounded him once for setting something on fire. Let's find out what that something was and then lie and say it was a puppy.

by J2 on Apr 10, 2009 10:11 AM EDT reply actions

That was one of their finest efforts of the season. It’s a shame that it took total desperation to get that kind of game. This team has far too much talent to be sitting at home next week, but they are missing the heart, grit and leadership that it takes to be successful in this league.

http://hockey-sense.today.com A blog dedicated to the greatest sport in the universe.

by DamageInc95 on Apr 10, 2009 10:37 AM EDT reply actions