Best Wins of the 00’s, Number Three
Sunday, January 31st, 2010 3:44 pm by mrenninger
NUMBER THREE
Game Five, Eastern Conference Semifinals
Heading into the Conference Semis, these teams did not like each other...
May 4, 2007
Buffalo Sabres 2
New York Rangers 1 (ot)
“The best-of-seven matchup now shifts back to Buffalo, where the Sabres — the NHL’s best team in the regular season — took a 2-0 lead. Now they will be feeling the heat from a nervous, title-starved town unwilling to accept anything less than the first Stanley Cup in franchise history.” -Espn.com, May 1, 2007
It was a frustrating time for Sabres Nation. The march to the Stanley Cup finals was not supposed to be this difficult for a team that had led the league in goals scored on their way to the President’s Trophy. The team had dispensed of the New York Islanders in five workman-like games, and had taken the first two games of the next series, which were played in Buffalo. The Sabres were going to finish off a sweep- or at worst, another five game win- and head on to the conference finals, one step closer to the Stanley Cup the team had spent all year putting reservations on. Suddenly, however, someone pulled the power on the Sabres’ high powered offense.
The team scored two goals in the next two games, a pair of 2-1 losses at Madison Square Garden. First came an excrusiating double overtime loss in Game 3 to dash all hopes of a sweep, then came the controversial end of Game 4, where, had the series turned out the other way, fans would still be cursing the ‘no goal’ call on Daniel Briere’s shot that would have tied the game late. Suddenly instead of toasting an easy victory, fans were panicking that the most hyped team in history wouldn’t make it past the second round, something that certainly wasn’t unlikely, considering the sudden ineptness of the offense to beat Rangers goalie Henrik Lundqvist. The next game, Game 5 would be what determined the series. Either the Sabres would bounce back with a win at home, or the Rangers would put their stranglehold on the series and hand the favorites their third straight demoralizing loss.
I remember thinking “this is how fans in the ’40’s must have followed the game. I was stuck in Central Pennsylvania for my first year of grad school with a cable package that didn’t include Versus, and a final exam two days away which made it imprudent to head to a bar to watch the game, so I sat down in front of my computer to listen to the streamed feed of Rick Jeanneret from wgr550.com. It felt like there was a personal attachment to the Sabres’ success that season. I was at the end of a draining and depressing first year out of college, upset that I couldn’t watch any of the games of that incredible season or just enjoy the vibe of the area, and just wanted the team to extend their playoff run to the end of finals and my move back to the Buffalo. There was a feeling of “of course they’re going to lose,” that was clouded over me as I listened to that game, imagining my friends living and dying with every shot in a crowded bar over beers while I was sharing it with two roommates who didn’t speak English and a six-pack of Red Bull. And the frustration continued throughout the first two periods, especially the second period where the Sabres out-shot the Rangers 17-6. We all knew Lundqvist was good, but there was a heavy disbelief that he wasn’t this good, and that resulted into an almost backlash against the Sabres, that they just must not be trying hard enough.
If anyone was trying hard enough, it was the penalty kill units of both teams, as the Sabres killed off five penalties in the first 40 minutes and the Rangers four. As usual, not only could it not be easy, it remained to be seen if it could be done at all. I had stopped studying early in the game, and now sat next to my small desk, ear turned to the speakers, eyes staring blankly into the corner, hoping for just one of the team’s thirty plus shots to find the back of the net. Unfortunately, the first person to find the back of the net wasn’t the team in blue, as Martin Straka over Miller and under the crossbar with just under three minutes left, and that was it. The Sabres were going to lose 1-0, be shutout for the first time all season in front of a national television audience, a sold-out arena, and another ten thousand desperate fans on the plaza outside. For me, it would be fitting for team whose performance has always seemed tied to extrinsic events in my own life, a backbreaking loss coming at the end of a personally backbreaking year.
It has to be one of the biggest goals in team history, a goal that, having not seen it live, I have watched hundreds of times on Youtube, a goal that sums up not only this region’s passion and love for their team, but the greatness of the sport of hockey in general. Had the season turned out differently, there might be a plaque in front of the arena with the inscription of the goal call verbatim.
With less than fifteen seconds to play and Miller watching from the bench, Drury got behind the net and passed it out for a shot which was blocked. The puck came right back to Drury, who by this point had skated in front of the net, and shot a quick wrister towards the net, despite the fact that Vanek was directly in front of him and a Rangers defenseman was flying through the crease in an attempt to block it. Amazingly, the shot found its way through Vanek’s legs and avoided the defender, hitting the back of the net with 7.7 remaining. The arena erupted, the plaza erupted, Jeanneret erupted, and sitting next to my speakers, I erupted, despite the fact that there wasn’t a soul that could celebrate with me.
Somehow, Drury's shot found the back of the net.
Of course, 56 minutes had gone by without a goal scored to start the game, and following the double overtime game serveral days earlier, everyone must have been aware that this could be awhile. Barely thirty seconds into overtime Drury got called for hooking, making fans wonder if the euphoria experienced from the tying goal was just a setup to the latest of many tragic losses in team history. However, once again the Sabres killed the penalty, their seventh of the night, and the overtime went on.
A quick aside: while watching playoff hockey is an emotional trying experience, with the acute awareness that every shot- no matter how harmless looking- could find the back of the net, listening to playoff hockey may be worse. You sit there in front of your radio, unaware of how good or bad a shot is, how good or bad the forecheck or clearing attempt may have looked. All one has to go on is the cadence of the announcers voice, and if that announcer is Rick Jeanneret, you are led to believe that every opportunity for either team, no matter how impotent, is almost a game winner. If the 2006-2007 playoff run taught me anything, it is that, no matter where I live, I will never, ever go without the ability to watch Sabres playoff games, and neither should you.
With all his years on the Sabres roster, Maxin Afinogenov’s career will likely be remembered as a massive disappointment, the most frustrating player to don the blue and gold of the past decade (and perhaps the most frustrating player to don the black and red ever). His recent resurrgance with the Thrashers should be taken with a grain of salt and a reminder that your least athletic family member could score ten goals on a line with Kovalchuk. But to his credit, he will also be remembered for one of the biggest goals in Sabres history.
Unbeknown to me, the radio feed was about a minute behind the real-time events at the arena. So when my best friend called me, I was acutely aware that he must have known something I didn’t yet. The Rangers had just committed a hooking penalty, giving the Sabres their sixth power play of the night.
“Hello?” I asked.
“Oh. My. God,” he said, and I felt the hair on the back of my neck stand up. See, I heard nothing in the background. No cheering, no swearing, no noise whatsoever. I had no way of knowing that my friend hadn’t gone out because he had to work late that night, so for the moment the absence of sound was a disasterous omen.
“They’re just going on the power play, I’m listening to the radio feed.”
“Okay call me back when something happens,” he said cryptically and hung up the phone.
I got off the phone and heard the opening faceoff of the power play, where Pominville ripped a shot wide, the puck going to Kalinin. It was here where I felt “oh my god they lost the game,” as I despised Kalinin, who had been the target of at least twice as much criticism than anyone else on the team. I thought to myself that Kalinin was going to lose the puck at the blue line and some Rangers forward would be on his way to a breakaway and a subsequent game-winning goal, and yes I thought all these things in the 1.5 seconds Kalinin had the puck.
Instead he passed it to Max, who let go a slapshot and the rest is history. Vanek sets a perfect screen, Lundqvist never sees it, puck goes in five-hole, Afinogenov dives across the ice, grown men and women jump on each others’ shoulders outside the arena, Sabres win 2-1, and all is right in Sabres nation, and for me, my life. Three days later, following the Sabres series clinching 5-4 victory at MSG, I am stretched out on a couch in the student lounge reading the New York Times. As I read the following article, a smile spreads across my face.
“As gallantly as the Rangers tried to force overtime, their 5-4 loss eliminated them from the Stanley Cup playoffs and chiseled another number into the long list of negative numbers that live in Rangers history, not to mention Rangers infamy.
7.7 seconds.
That was the tormenting time remaining in regulation when the Sabres created a 1-1 tie in Game 5 on Friday night in Buffalo, then won in overtime.
7.7 seconds.
Had the Rangers preserved that 1-0 lead, they would have snatched a 3-2 lead in their Eastern Conference semifinal series. It’s not a stretch to think that if they had won Friday night, they might have won yesterday or in what was scheduled to be Game 7 tomorrow night in Buffalo. Instead, they’re going home, and the Sabres will be playing the Ottawa Senators in the conference finals.
7.7 seconds.”
I looked up from the paper, then around the empty room and laughed. Yeah, 7.7 seconds.
One of the only images of Max that brings unabashed joy