Esche can’t save day in Game 1

Anthony SanFilippo, Of the Times Staf
f04/23/2006

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Robert Esche did all he could. And yet, it still wasn’t enough. Daniel Briere tipped a pass from Jochen Hecht past Esche at 7:31 of the second overtime period to give the Sabres a 3-2 win and a 1-0 lead in the best-of-7 Eastern Conference Quarterfinals.

The goal came during a delayed penalty, something the Flyers took too many of during the game. If the goal wasn’t scored, Buffalo would have been on their 10th power play of the game.

But the Flyers did a masterful job shutting down that power play, turning aside all nine Sabres chances.

Still, it wasn’t enough.

The Flyers dropped the first game of a playoff series for the 32nd time in team history.

Esche has been talking about how he welcomes the pressure. How he wants to be the guy who can put the Flyers on his shoulders and carry them to playoff glory.

He said if there’s someone to point a finger at, he wants it to be him.

Well there were plenty of fingers pointing at Esche, but not in a negative fashion.

Instead, they were aimed in his direction, and usually followed by the exclamation, "Did you see that save."

There were plenty of them for Esche, who single-handedly kept an overmatched Flyers team in a game they had no business to be in.

Esche made 55 saves, including 15 in a wild and wooly first overtime period. He stopped Jochen Hecht and Paul Gaustad on the same two-on-one breakaway.

He stoned Chris Drury on a wrap around shot that was destined for the back of the net, only to be thwarted by the lightning quick right pad of Esche.

And that’s just a sample.

The Sabres kept shooting and Esche kept stopping them.

Until the final shot.

But Buffalo should have had the game won long before the 87th minute, outshooting the Flyers 58-32 for the game.

It took the Flyers 35 minutes just to shake off whatever doldrums had held them to a shot disadvantage of 29-8 and had them in a 2-0 hole.

But then they had a nice shift, started by a good forecheck by Sami Kapanen. It forced the Sabres to try to wheel the puck out the far side of the zone, only to have it intercepted by Forsberg.

The Flyers continued to mount pressure on Ryan Miller, their most since the opening seconds of the game, and it eventually led to a goal by Mike Knuble.

Denis Gauthier fired a good, hard, slapshot that hovered just off the ice. Miller made the save, but the rebound went right to Knuble, who scored in his ninth consecutive game against the Sabres including the regular season.

That trimmed it to 2-1, and then Knuble almost tied it in the final minute of the second period when he whacked another rebound past Miller with the Flyers on the power play.

Problem was, the puck was in the air, several inches above the crossbar when Knuble swatted it into the net.

It was immediately waved off by referee Dennis LaRue, and his call appeared to be correct when a video replay showed that Knuble’s stick was, in fact, above the crossbar.

However, any momentum the Flyers may have built at the end of the second was quickly washed away in the third period by some stifling Sabres defense.

It was so smothering that the Flyers -- a team trailing by a goal in a playoff game -- couldn’t even generate a shot on goal.

They didn’t get the first shot until 12:54 into the third period, as the Sabres stretched their shot advantage to 40-16.

There was one storm cloud that hung over the overtime and nearly overshadowed the phenomenal goaltending of Esche.

R.J. Umberger was leveled by a brutal, open-ice check from Brian Campbell.

Umberger never saw Campbbell coming and took a shoulder right to the nose.

He had to be helped off the ice after lying flat on his back for a couple minutes and did not return.

Buffalo’s first goal came on a questionable non-call.

Minutes after whistling Peter Forsberg for a ticky-tack hooking penalty, Forsberg was yanked off the puck by Ales Kotalik by virtue of what appeared to be a hook at the side of the Flyers net.

The puck skidded across the slot to Tim Connolly, who forced Esche to commit, before tucking a backhander behind the Flyers netminder to make it 1-0 at 5:20 of the first period.

The Sabres, who spent much of the first two periods in the Flyers zone, stretched the lead to 2-0 when Jay McKee snapped a seeing-eye wrist shot from the left circle over Esche’s shoulder to make it 2-0 at 5:06 of the second period.

©DelcoTimes 2006