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Originally Posted by Royal Hawaiian Opihi
hockey?
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Yup, Sabres 2, Rangers 1 in Game 5 to put the Sabres up 3-2 in the series heading back to NY with the Sabres gaining the opporunity to win the series on Sunday instead of being eliminated.
The game was 0-0, wih tons of scoring chances, but Henrik Lunqvist was playing awesome for the Rangers with some unreal saves. Then the Rangers broke through Miller with a long blistering shot by Martin Straka with only 3:19 left in the game. The Rangers were all over the Sabres for the next 2 2 1/2 minutes. With just 16 seconds left, and a loss that would put the top seeded Sabres facing elimination Sunday in NY, the Sabres had a faceoff in the Rangers zone. What TV may or maynot have shown, was the entire building standing up, giving our boys a standing ovation of support... it was LOUD. Then with 7.7 seconds left, Captain Clutch (Chris Drury) found a seam on a rebound and put the puck past Lunqvist to force overtime. It was unreal, the place was just rocking.
30 seconds into overtime, Drury got called on a ticky tack hooking penalty (bad call), and potentially goes from hero to goat with the Rangers going on the Power Play in OT. The the Sabres played a great PK, however, putting more pressure on the Rangers than the Rangers put on us despite being a man short. Not long after killing off the penalty, the Rangers got called for what was likely a makeup ticky tack call (bad call IMO, just as Drury's was). About 15 seconds into the Power Play, Jason Pominville dug the puck out of the corner sent it back to the point to Dimitri Kalini who just kept it in the line, then passed it off to Maxim Afinogenov who put the puck home for the 2-1 win as the building again erupted, and Max went sliding on his chest past center ice before being jumped on by the entire Sabres team in the corner.
What an awesome finish to a game played so well, but looked as if it was over. I'm still pumped from it. Hopefullyt we can finish it off on Sunday, and I'll be able to use my slick looking conference final tickets I picked up before the game yesterday (awsome looking tix, Full color with the cup on them and whatnot... I'll post a pick if we advance)!