BUFFALO — Ryan Miller, with his wiry pipe-cleaner body and shock of black hair, hardly looked the part of inspirational leader in the morning.
But his message came from the heart and his actions at puck drop spoke volumes more. He told an increasingly disbelieving media that his Sabres were playing the Boston Bruins even-steven, despite being a game away from golfing, then went out and gave his shaky team the opening minute save it needed.
“We know what needs to be done,” Miller said Friday morning. “It’s a race to four wins and they still have to put us away. And we’re a good team.”
From the moment Miller held his ground on David Krejci, Game 5 belonged to the Sabres and after the 4-1 win, there will be Game 6 in Boston on Monday. The near impossible push to come back from a 3-1 hole is far from complete, but the Sabres have life.
A power-play goal by Johnny Boychuk with 2:30 to play ruined Miller’s shutout bid, but a hustling empty-netter by Tyler Ennis made it the first in 11 regular season and playoff games between the two teams with a winning margin of more than two goals, another encouraging sign for the Sabres, who are deemed to have the better offence.
After much line-shuffling by Sabres coach Lindy Ruff, some ideal trios have come together. Two of the three players Ruff said he needed more from, Derek Roy and Jason Pominville, had points and the bit of muscle injected into each line, Cody McCormick and Mike Grier, plus a touch of mighty mite Nathan Gerbe were enough to stop the Bruins from winning yet another game when trailing most of the way.
The Sabres struck first for the fifth straight game and this time, they built on it as rookie Finn Tuukka Rask’s winning streak ended in the Boston net.
Boston was given an incredible gift right off the bat when Krejci found himself so far in on Miller that he could try one of those fancy shootout dekes. But he overhandled the puck and Buffalo scored on its first shot when fourth-liner Adam Mair banked a puck off rookie defenceman Adam McQuaid’s skate from behind Rask.
Still, the Sabres nor the sold out house at HSBC Arena seemed to feel very comfortable about holding another early lead, as the nervous home side struggled to clear the zone and looked awful on its 15th straight fumbled power play. Yet Miller didn’t give up the goal Boston needed to turn that apprehension into all out panic failed. Daniel Paille hit the post and Blake Wheeler had a great Krejci set up go into his feet instead of on his stick with Miller out of position.
Boston’s fairly solid puck movement in this series let it down with 1:06 to play in the first when Andrew Ference had two chances to clear, the second getting tangled in teammate Vladimir Sobotka’s feet. Ennis and Roy were able to work the puck on net and Jason Pominville put away a rebound.
Gradually gaining confidence, Buffalo shook off the disappointment of not scoring on its 16th man advantage with one off the post and another that Zdeno Chara pulled off the line, scoring again when Paul Gaustad won a clean draw to Grier for a bang-bang shot. Grier got a standing ovation in the third period for getting his head in the way of a Dennis Wideman blast, again the kind of extra effort the Sabres had talked of throughout this series and not done.
Gerbe came into the lineup for Raffi Torres, a tough player that Ruff nonetheless thought he wasn’t getting enough of a full game out of.
“It’s a hunch,” Ruff admitted. “Physically, we’ve been all right. There are guys I’m unhappier with (Roy, Pominville and the still silent Tim Connolly), who have to come through.”
Boston coach Claude Julien, who was behind Montreal’s bench in 2004 when it rallied to beat Boston when down 3-1, had warned his team in the morning that “it only gets harder from here.”
Only 21 teams have ever come all the way back from 3-1 out of 234 best-of-sevens prior to the 2010 playoffs.
