Buffalo Sabres blank Philadelphia Flyers, 1-0: NHL Recap
Ryan Miller turned away all 35 shots for his second career shutout, as Buffalo Sabres held on for a 1-0 victory over Philadelphia Flyers, at Wells Fargo Centre on Thursday night.
Patrick Kaleta notched the victory by scoring the lone goal of the game for Buffalo, who finished the regular season with 96 points and with only one regulation loss in the previous 13 games played in this season.
"We have played forty of these games," said the Sabres' head coach, Lindy Ruff. "We have been playing this type of game for three months. It has been the one goal game, whether it is 2-1, or 3-2, or tied late in the period. We have been tested continually down the stretch."
Sergei Bobrovsky played very well in his initial post-season start, stopping 24 shots for Philadelphia, which has lost six consecutive play-offs at home and halted that streak in the season finale.
Miller was outstanding all the night as he blocked all the shots under all types of pressure and lifted Buffalo to the clutch opening victory.
One of his best saves came when he turned aside a shot from his knees and with six skaters in the crease. He stopped one shot with the Sabres down two men. The Flyers continued to attack on net during the whole game, but Miller never buckled. He was strong between the pipes and Buffalo took quick command of the play.
The opening period was goal-less as each goalie stopped 10 shot. The Flyers got the best chance to score when James van Riemsdyk’s wrist-shot hit the post from the right wing just over five minutes into the first period. Philadelphia had several opportunities, but Miller kept them off the board as he wasted the Flyers’ advantage that featured multiple quality chances late in the period.
Despite heavy pressure from the Flyers, the score-less second period saw the Sabres survive a 38-second power-play when Kimmo Timonen ripped a slap-shot on a 5-on-3 advantage half-way through the middle session. However, Philadelphia continued to attack on net with a stream of shots that went nowhere except straight to Miller.
"It's frustrating obviously. A loss is not easy and you kind of wonder where you went wrong and what you could have done," said the Flyers captain, Mike Richards. "We created a lot, we didn't give up much, and we were pretty tight defensively. We just have to find those pucks. I think four or five times tonight I missed some tips. Pucks were just missing the net and we have to find that."
The Sabres finally accounted for the first and final lead of the game, 1-0, just six minutes into the final period. The goal came when Paul Gaustad won a battle for the puck along the right boards and passed it back to the left point, where Marc-Andre Gragnani fired a shot that was stopped by Bobrovsky, but Kaleta gathered the rebound at the top of the crease and jammed it home.
Philadelphia got another golden opportunity to score in its fifth power-play, when Buffalo defender, Tyler Myers, was called for tripping Ville Leino on a rush with nine minutes left in the third period.
Bobrovsky was pulled in favour of an extra skater with nearly one and half minute to play, but the Flyers could not pull an equaliser as the Sabres checked away the remaining time perfectly.
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