Originally posted by: JujuFish
Well, the 3rd wasn't so great. Carolina scored to close within one, and ANOTHER Buffalo d-man went down. This time it was Tallinder, easily one of our most consistent players in the playoffs. This is getting sad. I hope at least one of those three d-men will be ready Friday.
However, Buffalo won, and that's great! 4-3 victory, after controlling the first two periods and escaping the third with 5 defensemen.
In the third Buffalo went back and played mostly defense. It's not as easy in the new rule league, but the team is talented enough to do it and Lindy Ruff is easily the best defensive coach in the league.
Tallinder is out for the season, he will be missed. Though Pominville is most likely going to play on defense, which could work out well. Tallinder was a good offensive D-man who played a great transition game and worked the point well. I think that Pominville can easily work his way into a defensive pairing rotation and do some major damage. He is just large enough to be a hard hitting D-man, but he is also very fast and can work the transition game better than most D-men. The Sabres play a very agressive defensive game anyway so I don't think having a decent sized and hard-working forward in the D-pairs will be a bad move at all.
Teppo will also start working very hard to come back and if (WHEN) the Sabres make it to the cup finals Teppo will definitely be back in the line-up and ready to go and he will most likely be back in this series. Hell there is even a Kalinin could possibly come back (i wish). Even then the Sabres have a bunch of young, fast, hard playing rookies that they can dip into. These guys from rochester have been called up and everytime have showed up to play as well as any veteran on the ice.
The Sabres should take this one. They proved in this last game that they can play harder, faster and with more intensity than Carolina. Buffalo was absolutely ALL OVER carolina for the majority of that game. Even in game two Carolina didn't play up to that level. Staal is being shutdown by the sabres and brid'amour isn't playing anywhere near hard enough to out play the Sabres. The Sabres will be taking this one in game 5.
I think the finals will be the Sabres and the Oilers. Both teams are great, but edmonton is more of a dreamteam than Buffalo is. The cup finals will go to seven games and the goalies will be the deciding factor along with the dominant speed (which goes to the Sabres). The Sabres have the advantage of Lindy Ruff and his years of coaching Roloson, so he should know how to play against Rollie. Rollie is definitely hot in the playoffs, but it was obvious with the last game that he is not a deciding factor in every game when the heat gets turned up.
All I want to see is one stanley cup come to Buffalo. Then all of my thousands and thousands of dollars spent on season tickets will be justified.