“I just feel that they’re doing a lot of whining,” Ruff said. “They’re really doing a lot of whining. I didn’t hear any whining when they had 10 power plays in Philly and I don’t hear any whining when the power plays in the first game were lopsided. But all of a sudden there’s all this whining about we’re getting away with murder? That’s a bunch of crap. That’s for the media, that’s for the officials to read, that’s for ‘Here, let’s get the next call.’ That’s a bunch of crap. Let’s just play.
Game 5 against the Philadelphia Flyers has now hit that critical mark where both of these teams just officially hate each other. The Flyers and Sabres will face off in a deciding Game 5 on Friday night where the winner essentially puts the loser on the ropes. Throw in the fact that the Flyers feel that they got screwed by the refs in Game 4 and the Sabres are just trying to figure out a way to win a game by not shutting out the opponent and both teams are going to be in that desperation mode.
The Sabres brought this series back to even with another 1-0 shutout in Game 4 and they travel back to Philadelphia knowing that they have to take another game in Philadelphia to win the series. The Flyers are looking to have Chris Pronger back in the lineup after missing the first four games of the series. As a tradeoff, they should be without Jeff Carter who injured his knee in a collision with Tyler Myers in Game 4.
For Buffalo, there haven’t been any announcements in players returning, so the lineup should stay the same from Game 4. The biggest thing for the Sabres to get control of tonight is their offense. In the two victories over the Flyers, the offense required shutouts from Ryan Miller to win the game. For success in the rest of this series, they need to figure out a way to beat Brian Boucher, who has only allowed four goals on 87 shots he has faced in the series. The lone offense game the Sabres had came off of Sergei Bobrovsky who will most likely not return to the series. The team that has scored first in the series has won every game thus far so scoring the first goal is going to be key.
Game time is 7:30 pm and can be seen on Versus outside of the local viewing area. Gamethread is at 7:00 pm.