The Sabres season has come to a devasting end

Buffalo, NY (WGR 550) – The Buffalo Sabres had spent over 40 minutes dominating the Montreal Canadiens. Buffalo was trailing 2-0, but Mattias Samuelsson shot went in off Jordan Greenway at 13:19 of the second period and Owen Power did a terrific job of holding onto a puck until Rasmus Dahlin broke free through the left circle to tie it at 6:27 of the third.

That's when the second biggest play of Game 7 happened midway through the period. Greenway pushed a puck through Jakub Dobes and the puck was never covered or frozen. It just sat behind the goalie in the crease because he had no ide where the puck was until Beck Malenstyn shot it into the wide open net, but Referee Wes McCauley waved the goal off because he blew the whistle before the Sabres winger put the puck in the net. All that is true, but McCauley had the same view of the play that I did, the puck never was frozen and the whistle never should've been blown. Lindy Ruff said he wasn't given an explanation on the play. He said,

“I thought it was a little bit of a quick whistle, because you can always go back and look at those, but didn't really get an explaination on it.”

With the importance of that play not only the game, but the outcome of the series, Malenstyn was the only player I asked for after the game. I was told that can wait until tomorrow and he will not be made available. That question needs to be asked immediately after the game and not the next day.

None of us know if the Sabres would've gone onto win the game, but they would've taken a 3-2 lead against a team that was barely hanging on. Buffalo has been very good at protecting one-goal leads and also good at getting the empty net goal to put games away, so had McCauley not made such a bad mistake, the Sabres would've had a good chance to win and go onto the Eastern Conference Final.

The game remained tied at two until Tage Thompson and Dahlin mishandled the puck at the Montreal blue line and turned it over. Newhook came through the left circle and took a shot that turned out to be a knuckle puck. The front angle gave us a clear view that Luukkonen appeared to have the save, but the puck took a dip and went in under his arm to give Montreal the series.

It was Newhook who scored with 8:53 left in the third period in Tampa against the Lightning. In that Game 7 Montreal got boat raced by the Lightning who outshot them 29-9, but Tampa Bay just couldn't score on Dobes.

In the last 51:22 the Canadiens had just 14 shots on goal, while Buffalo had 31. Ruff commented that he told the team at the end of the second period that too many of their great chances were being shot wide. Buffalo held a 91-59 shot attempts advantage, but it was Dobes again who held down the fort.

The big three for Buffalo, Thompson, Dahlin and Alex Tuch combined for 15 shots on Dobes and scored once. Dahlin had eight attempts blocked.

So many players were point black against Dobes, but just couldn't score. Buffalo ended the series scoring nine of the last 12 goals, but the Sabres are still going home.

Many teams that has so many players in their first playoff series go through a few growing pains. The late John Muckler said the playoffs are a process and there are so many example of that over the years in the NHL.

Ruff knows his team had mnay chances to score and he said,

“We had some momentum swings, you get to overtime and we had some really good chances and when we had the chances in our hands and those are the opportunities that we hoped we'd get, we just didn't finish.

“We had a couple of great opportunities even in the third, the Helenius toe/glove save that almost went, I think the ice was fairly tilted, we had a lot of opportunities to make a difference in the game.”

This team accomplished a lot since Dec. 9 including going from last place in the Eastern Conference to second place and first place in the Atlantic Division. Ruff said,

“These guys never quit all year, it's just another indication that you battle hard, you stay with the game and Dahlin got us tied and I really felt the game was right there for us.

“It hurts, but that pain will go away, but i won't let this one game define the season we had. I told the players how proud I was of them, the battle we took into Game 6 in Montreal and then came back here and gave ourselves every chance to win.”

In the second round Buffalo won Game 1 at home and then proceeded to lose three straight home games. They lost 5-of-7 at home in the playoffs and the head coach said,

“Yes, that hurts, it's strange in the East the disparity between the home and the road, (home teams in the Eastern Conference are 12-22 with Carolina having four of those wins). Beside the start this was probably one of our better games where we tilted the ice and had the game in our favor, but didn't find a way to win it.

“Our fans have been so great, you go back to the end of the year the momentum they helped us with, the energy n this building, it would've been nice to close this one out her, just a gift for how good they've been, didn't quite get that done.”

After the hand shakes the team acknowledged the fans for eveything they gave them. These people have been Ruff's neighbors for many years and he made sure he clapped for them before he left. He said,

“Just how great they've been, the energy in the city, the energy around our team again, I'm so proud of our fans and I know this hurts them as much as it hurts us and this is the first time our players got to experience something like this and I couldn't be more proud of the way our city represented themselves with our play.”

Ruff got through to his players this season where he couldn't last year and it bothered him. They played the game the way it's supposed to be played and they made him proud. He said he appreciated the step forward this franchise has taken,

“I am, this is a giant step for all the players to really get a feel for what it's really like, to be proud of being a Buffalo Sabre, to be proud of playing here and when I took the job I thought, No.1 was I wanted these guys to like being a Buffalo Sabre and I think they liked being a Sabre and I think they did our city proud.”

Ruff said the players gave everything they had in their tank and that was obvious for much of this season. The next few days will be reflection and locker cleanout as they players sit down with Ruff and new general manager Jarmo Kekalainen to try to figure out what they need to do in the off season to take the next step in this team's journey.

We have no idea if unrestricted free agent Tuch will be back, but players that will be back are Noah Ostlund and Konsta Helenius. Don't forget about Jiri Kulich either if his issue with blood cots improves. Young defensemen like Radim Mrtka and Adam Kleber are big and mobile and are just around the corner. After two seasons at the University of Minnesota, Brodie Ziemer appears to be a guy that can be an NHL player. He was captain of Team USA at the World Junior. In two seasons with that club he scored four goals and nine assists for 13 points in 12 games. The future is bright and this is a team that will likely be hungry to take the next step in the Stanley Cup process.