Daniel Briere and the Buffalo Sabres look to end the season on a high note against the Philadelphia Flyers this Sunday on NBC.
The Buffalo Sabres have been so good this season it seems almost like they clinched a playoff berth months ago. They’ve already clinched the Eastern Conference crown and the Northeast Division title, but there is still one more order of business the Sabres want to take care of before the Stanley Cup Playoffs start.
They are still in the hunt for the top position in the entire NHL, jockeying with the Detroit Red Wings atop the league standings with a Presidents' Trophy and home-ice advantage throughout the playoffs still up for grabs.
“Well, I think it's a great goal,” Sabres coach Lindy Ruff has said of winning the Presidents’ Trophy. “Is it important? In the big scheme of things, it's not what we're after. I think we're on our way to try to win the Cup. If the Presidents' Trophy gets in the way, I'm OK with that. It's not something that we focus on. Really we focus on some of the areas that are going to allow us to be better, be effective in the playoffs. If we get there, we get there. It's really not our ultimate goal.”
The Sabres will conclude the regular season Sunday afternoon on the NHL on NBC (1 p.m., ET) against the Philadelphia Flyers in an important final step before the playoffs begin. While the Flyers are playing for pride, the Sabres are trying to secure the luxury of winning home-ice.
“If I were the Sabres, I would pull out all the stops to get as high a seed as possible,” NBC analyst Ed Olczyk says. “I lived through two Game 7s with the Rangers where having home ice advantage was of the utmost importance. I wouldn't risk playing injured players, but I would play this game like any other, to win.”
All season long, Ruff and the Sabres have tried to find a balance between the importance of winning the regular season and their ultimate goal of winning the Stanley Cup. Last season, Buffalo was eliminated in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Finals by the eventual champs, the Carolina Hurricanes.
That decisive game was played in Raleigh, thanks to the Hurricanes owning home-ice advantage. Playing in their own building was a huge benefit, just as sleeping in their own beds, dressing in their own locker room and playing in front of their own fans were. Same thing when the Canes won the Cup on home ice in Game 7 of the Final against Edmonton. Same thing when the Devils won it all in 2003 behind a Game 7 victory against Anaheim in New Jersey.
Every year in the playoffs the teams may be different and the players aren’t always the same. But a tournament constant is that it always helps to own home-ice, like when the Tampa Bay Lightning finished the 2003-04 season the top seed in the Eastern Conference en route to winning that year’s championship.
With the top seed in the Eastern Conference already secured, the Sabres shoot for the NHL's Presidents' Trophy.
“We started off the first round against the Islanders and we won in five and we had eight days off after that while other teams were battling and playing seven games,” Vincent Lecavalier told NHL.com. “After that we played Montreal and we beat them in four, they were the seven seed. And after that, we had another 10 days off. You get these little advantages. Once we got to the third round, we were playing against Philly in Game 7 and it was at home.
“To play at home in Game 7 is pretty important,” he said. “It was two series in a row like that. Calgary was the same thing. It’s got these little advantages that you definitely need and it definitely helps when you have them.”
The Lightning won the Cup that spring in their own building. They won it with loads of hard work in the tournament, and they helped themselves with the hard work they also did in the regular season when they were vying for position in the standings.
This season, the field seems even more competitive and the work the Sabres are doing now will likely come back to help them down the road in the playoffs.
Also on NBC Sunday, the playoff-bound Dallas Stars will close out their regular season against the Chicago Blackhawks.
Mike Emrick (play-by-play), Ed Olczyk (analyst) and Pierre McGuire (inside-the-glass reporter) will call Buffalo-Philadelphia, while Chris Cuthbert (play-by-play), Peter McNab (analyst) and Joe Micheletti (inside-the-glass) will work the game in Dallas.
Reference:
http://www.nhl.com/nhl/app/?service=page&page=NewsPage&articleid=298627
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