Sabres Ground Flyers
The Buffalo Sabres ended the Philadelphia Flyers' season with an astonishing 8-0 rout to win the first round series 4-2.
"I didn't want to go back to Philly. I wanted to play my last game there on Thursday," Sabres' Doug Gilmour said. "We wanted to prepare this as our seventh game. In my mind, no way was I going back there. We wanted to win here, get a little break, get ready for the next step."
The Flyers' goalie Roman Cechmanek surrendered five goals on nine shots before being replaced with Brian Boucher. It didn't make any difference for Philadelphia, who suffered their worst-ever playoff loss.
"We worked hard the first two games in Philly to gain the home-ice advantage," Buffalo coach Lindy Ruff said. "What more could you ask then to come back and play one game in your building in front of your fans to win a series?"
Dave Andreychuk had a power-play goal and two assists in the first period as the Sabres built a 4-0 lead.
"It was one of those games, and I've been in a few of them where everything goes your way," said Andreychuk. "We got the bounces, we got the breaks. I feel bad for the goalie because he had a great year, a great series. It was just one of those things."
The Sabres avenged last year's loss in the conference quarterfinals and eliminated the Flyers in the first round for the second time in four years.
"It sure wasn't the way we wanted to continue on or finish off the series," Flyers coach Bill Barber said. "We had a couple of wins and then it felt like our wheels fell off our wagon. It's been a demanding year on us and I'm not going to sit here and hang my head."
The Flyers overcame adversity all season, including back injuries that limited LeClair to 16 games and an inability to trade holdout center Eric Lindros.
"I don't think it had any impact at all on our team. In fact, I think it was positive getting that problem out of our locker room," Philadelphia general manager Bob Clarke said of Lindros. "We were forced to use different people in key situations and they responded. So I think there was a lot of positives to be taken from Lindros not having been on our team."
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