The Daily Sniper: Insert Foot Into Mouth

The Daily Sniper: News and notes from last night's action...

So I'll be the first to say it. I gave the Sabres no chance tonight in Game Four. After losing the first three and getting completely overpowered in Ottawa in Game Three, I figured there was nothing left and the Sabres were done. I couldn't have been more wrong. The Sabres pulled a complete 360 and played some real good hockey, the kind we're used to seeing them play and won 3-2. They didn't dominate the entire 60 minutes, and there were a few moments where you thought Ottawa would pull even, but the goals never came. To be fair, both teams had a few gimmie chances. The Sens hit a few posts and Afinogenov missed a layup with a few minutes to go, just to name a few.

Fans cheer on the Sabres from the HSBC arena in Buffalo. Don Heupel/AP

What impresses me the most about this series is the fans. Both teams have completely rabid fan bases that are just flat out starving for titles. I don't think you would see this much passion from any other teams in the East with the exceptions of Montreal, Toronto and possibly Boston. Not to say the rest of the conference has soft fans, far from it, I just don't know if there are any other teams in the conference that can say they have this many rabid fans. I've been trying find a count for how many fans showed up at HSBC Arena in Buffalo to watch the game tonight, but no luck yet. I feel like it should be a pretty impressive number.

The one real knock I have is that this series hasn't quite lived up to expectations. I was expecting a knock down, drag out, dog fight (somewhat similar to what's going on out west) and so far it's been off and on. Games Two and Four were pretty entertaining, but the others were just straight beatings from Ottawa. I'll be completely honest though, I was really hoping that there would be some huge brawls. Ahhh the memories... I can only imagine what Bryan Murray had to say to Lindy Ruff.