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Flyers hang tough for Brian Boucher, take out Buffalo for a 2-1 series lead

Brian Boucher

After all that was made today about the Flyers making a switch in goal opting to go with Brian Boucher to start and scratching Games 1 and 2 starter Sergei Bobrovsky in favor of last year’s goaltending hero Michael Leighton, the rest of the Flyers team stepped up and did their job.

Philadelphia took out Buffalo 4-2 on the strength of Boucher’s 35 saves as they withstood a game attack from Buffalo all throughout to take a 2-1 series lead. The Flyers offense did their part as well getting goals from four different players including former Sabre Daniel Briere and getting the first career playoff goal from Nikolay Zherdev. Jeff Carter and Kimmo Timonen also had goals for the Flyers while Nathan Gerbe and Drew Stafford scored for Buffalo.

Still, the story is Boucher who provided the stable play they were hoping for in goal and helped settle things down after things started to look a bit too familiar with some shaky play from Bobrovsky in Game 2 that saw him pulled in favor of Boucher who settled things down and allowed the Flyers the time to take the game over. While things got a bit scary early on in Game 3, Boucher stayed strong throughout and the Flyers buckled down to keep Buffalo’s chances to a minimum.

Meanwhile offensively it would be Daniel Briere who would help torment his former team while Zherdev’s first career playoff goal would be the difference maker in the game.

The Flyers again prove that they can get production from any of their lines, but tonight it was their bigger names helping take care of business. If they can keep that kind of action going, this tiring out Buffalo squad won’t be able to keep up with them. Being able to roll out three or four lines that can score is a major difference maker.

For Buffalo, they desperately need Ryan Miller (22 saves tonight) to play bigger and better. He’s been having a not-so-hot for Ryan Miller kind of season, but they really need him to play at his best in the playoffs. Seems like a no-brainer, but the lift that could give to Buffalo would be immense. Finding that extra juice for tired legs on the ice can be as simple as a big hit, a big goal, or a big save. The Sabres aren’t seeing enough of the latter.