posted May 17, 2007 at 18:19 in NHL Articles

The Buffalo Sabres aren’t finished – at least not yet. The NHL’s President’s Trophy winner managed to avoid elimination on Wednesday night with a 3-2 road win over the Ottawa Senators. That sends the teams back to Buffalo for Game 5 on Saturday afternoon.

The Sabres showed early on Wednesday that they weren’t giving up on the series – Derek Roy opened the scoring just nine seconds into the first period. Underdog Buffalo then got goals from Maxim Afinogenov and Chris Drury early in the second period to push the team’s lead to 3-0 at Scotiabank Place. However, things got tighter from there.

Dean McAmmond scored at 14:55 of the second frame to get the Senators on the board, and Peter Schaefer potted his first goal of the playoffs two minutes later to pull Ottawa to within one. That was it for the night’s scoring though – neither Ryan Miller nor Ray Emery were beaten the rest of the way as the Sabres held on for a big 3-2 victory.

 

Miller was named the game’s First Star for stopping 31-of-33 Senators shots in the contest (including all 15 he faced in the third period). Emery made 19 saves in the loss.

Now Buffalo (-140) will be looking for back-to-back wins when they play host to the Senators (+120) at HSBC Arena in Game 5 on Saturday afternoon (with puck drop set for 2:00pm ET). Ottawa has come out on top in both games in Buffalo so far during this series – they defeated the Sabres 5-2 in Game 1, and 4-3 in double overtime in Game 2.

Both the Sabres and the Senators will head into Game 5 with healthy lineups – at least officially. Buffalo forward Dainius Zubrus has a ‘lower-body injury’, but no further information has been given out by the team on the ailment, and he played (albeit quite sparingly) on Wednesday. For Ottawa, forward Patrick Eaves has recovered from his head injury (suffered in Round 1), and he’s waiting to get back into the Senators’ lineup.

Should the Sabres manage to get another win on Saturday, the teams would head back to Ottawa for Game 6 on Monday night. A deciding Game 7 would be held Wednesday.

Meanwhile, Game 5 of the Western Conference final between the Detroit Red Wings and the Anaheim Ducks is set for Sunday afternoon in the Motor City. Game 6 of that series would be played Tuesday in Anaheim, with a Game 7 played Thursday in Detroit. Check the BetUS odds section for the latest lines and series prices for the NHL playoffs.

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