You have to wonder at times why people in Buffalo even doubt Ryan Miller. Sure, he has his shaky moments once in a while but most of the time, he comes up big when it counts. Add Wednesday night's performance to his list of great games as the Sabres shutout the Flyers 1-0 to tie up the best of seven series at 2-2.
Buffalo had a nice start to the game as they had a lot of chances early in the first period. Jason Pominville opened the scoring for the Sabres when he scored on a tic-tac-toe goal to put the Sabres up 1-0.
It was a great play as Ennis got the puck behind the Flyers net, quickly passed it to Rob Niedermayer who relayed it to a wide open Jason Pominville in front of the Flyers net who cashed it in from two feet away.
The Sabres continued to put pressure on for the rest of the period but failed to score. Brad Boyes and Tyler Myers both hit the post in the period.
In the second period, both teams kept getting chances, but nothing resulted out of it. With three seconds left in the period, Mike Richards took a five minute major penalty for elbowing Patrick Kaleta.
The Sabres failed to score on the five minute power play but that didn't mean that the power play wasn't important. It helped kill five minutes off the clock in the third period while forcing the Flyers captain to sit in the penalty box.
The rest of the third period was exciting but no one on either team scored as the Sabres went on to win 1-0.
Ryan Miller was fabulous once again as he made 32 saves for his second shutout of the series and his third career postseason shutout. Miller made many keys saves late including stuffing Daniel Briere all alone in front of the net and stopping Mike Richards on a partially open net.
The Sabres didn't generate a ton of chances but they played very discipline defense and stood up for one another. The Sabres best chance in the third period was when Tyler Ennis broke loose and just failed to score on a partial breakaway.
With the win, the Sabres have tied up the series with Philadelphia at 2-2. Game 5 is Friday at 7:30pm.
Attendance: 18,690
Series: Tied 2-2
Interesting Note: Wednesday nights 1-0 win was the Sabres second 1-0 win of the series.
Key Stat: The team that has scored the first goal is 4-0 in this series.
Three Stars:
1st- Ryan Miller (Buffalo)
2nd- Brian Boucher (Philadelphia)
3rd- Tyler Myers (Buffalo)
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