To be honest, I went out Wednesday night planning to chronicle the last night of this hockey season in Buffalo.
After the way Ottawa crushed the Sabres in Monday night’s third game of the Eastern Conference Finals, physically and spiritually, in perhaps the most one-sided 1-0 game ever played in any sport, the logical conclusion was that Buffalo’s seven-month run as the new glamour team of the National Hockey League was in its death throes.
Teams come back from 3-0 deficits every 30-some years (the 1942 Maple Leafs, the '75 Islanders and, in baseball, the '04 Red Sox), and no hockey team has managed it in 32. You can hope for a miracle, but expecting one is no way to do business.
The first hint that not everyone was ready to pack away their midnight blue-and-maize gear quite yet came on the train ride downtown. Of the 50 people on my car, about two-thirds wore a Sabres jersey, hat or T-shirt, most bound for the route’s final stop, a quick walk from HSBC Arena, where the game in Ottawa would be shown on the Jumbotron inside.
Most looked to be in their teens or early 20s, with a few parents escorting younger children. It was tough to judge by expressions whether the riders were genuinely optimistic or just wanted to squeeze every drop of hockey out of a campaign that was so good for so long, whatever the evening’s outcome.
I had decided against joining the crowd at HSBC, figuring that story would be more than adequately covered elsewhere. Instead, Tim – a regular member of the Niagara Falls Reporter’s Bills coverage team who specializes in cynicism and obscure movie references – and I decided to hit a couple of venerable downtown establishments.
We started at the Lafayette Tap Room on Washington Street, just up the hill from the arena. We were walking up to the door when Chris Drury pounced on a lazy clearing pass near Ottawa’s blue line and lined a perfect pass to Derek Roy, who zipped it past Senators goalie Ray Emery just nine seconds after the opening face-off (if you were tardy, too, or just want to enjoy it again, all the goals can be seen here).
Even if we had made it to a television before the puck dropped, we might have missed that first goal anyway. There was some sort of 97 Rock-sponsored bike night going on and a stadium organist alternating with a blues band, guaranteeing that you not only wouldn’t hear the television commentary – not necessarily a bad thing – but that any discussion among patrons would remain at a minimum.
Adding to the sensory overload were a crowd that included five young men wearing identically camouflaged outfits, whom you would hope were members of some branch of the military or another, and Buffalo Jills clad in old-timey cheerleader sweaters.
“It’s all a little bit fascist,” Tim noted.
And yet, pretty entertaining.
Things got even louder early in the second period, when Maxim Afinogenov snuck out from behind the Ottawa net and redirected a sweet pass from Daniel Briere into the net before Emery knew what happened.
Less than four minutes later, Emery let Drury’s quick shot go through his legs and it was 3-0.
The Sabres continued to swarm around the stunned Senators, the organist playing even louder.
“This game is over,” I said.
“Don’t say that,” Tim said.
As he pronounced the final ‘t,’ Dean McAmmond’s shot went past Ryan Miller for Ottawa’s first goal. Buffalo responded by becoming even more lackadaisical and less than two minutes later, Peter Schaefer made it 3-2.
It seemed like a good time to shift locations, so during intermission, we walked to the Century Grill on Pearl Street.
The tone was quite different there – a good crowd, but no cheerleaders, no organists, no revving motorcycles outside. And only two customers wearing any sort of Sabres gear.
To be fair, a lot of the patrons looked like they’d come straight from work. If they had been raucous while Buffalo built its lead, the quick turnaround had stopped them from clambering back aboard the bandwagon.
As Ottawa peppered Miller with shots during the final 20 minutes, one business-casual wearer sipped his beer with his left hand, clenching the right tighter with each passing save.
A collective whoop went up as the clock hit zero, but it sounded more like relief than joy. The Sabres avoided the ignominy of getting swept out the playoffs after serving as the NHL’s pace-setter through the regular season.
The 3-2 win also meant the series comes back to Buffalo for Game 5 at 2 p.m. Saturday.
One more day of hockey.
At least.