By Art Wander:

The Buffalo Sabres and New York Rangers raged a war at Madison Square Garden that saw both teams just missing on tremendous scoring opportunities in regulation and especially in overtime before the Rangers scored the winner late in the second overtime. That came with less than 4 minutes left in OT #2 and was scored by Michal Rozsival after Daniel Briere tied the game at 1-apiece in the third period.

The Sabres still hold a 2-1 edge in the semi-final series but a win Sunday afternoon would have put Buffalo up 3-0 and virtually assured moving into the Conference Finals. As it turned out, the Sabres will be hoping for a split with a win Tuesday night to come back to Buffalo with a 3-1 series edge. The Sabres still hold home-ice advantage even if New York wins on Tuesday.

It was a battle of goaltenders as Ryan Miller and Henrik Lundqvist kept their respective teams in the game. Miller faced 46 shots while Buffalo sent 39 on Lundqvist. Miller had the tougher saves. Chances? Each team had 6 shots in the second overtime alone. Throughout both overtimes fans of both teams were on the edge of the seat each time a shot was taken.

Yet, if there was one negative in the great effort by both teams, it was Buffalo’s failures on power plays. They did score once with the man advantage but netted zero on 8 other chances. The Rangers went 0-5 on their PP trips. On a couple of the Buffalo power plays, the Sabres didn’t register a shot on goal.

The game was up for grabs and Buffalo just missed getting the game winner in the first overtime when a shot bounced off both goal posts but stayed out. Early, in regulation, a Rangers goal was disallowed when it was ruled it was kicked into the net.

After being silent for the first two games, Jaromir Jagr emerged scoring his first goal only 33 seconds into the second period and just after a Buffalo penalty expired. During a scramble in front of Miller, Jagr took a shot that trickled through Miller’s pads and lay just outside the goal line. Jagr swooped in and journeyed the puck into the net.

The Sabres had many great opportunities to score and with the Rangers nursing the 1-0 lead in the final period, Buffalo finally got on the board on Buffalo’s 7th power play opportunity. Tim Connolly managed to get the puck to Daniel Briere in the slot and the Sabres co-captain slammed a slapshot past Lundqvist to tie the game 1-1.

The game winner came with 3:17 left in the second overtime. Buffalo just failed to convert when the puck came back into the Sabres zone. Forechecking, the puck came back to the point where Michal Rozsival bulleted a shot that sailed inside the right post behind a Jagr screen sending the crowd in MSG into hytsteria.



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