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(Most of the) Sabres got what they deserved
JASON NADOLINSKI Sports Reporter
Well, when all was said and done, it looks like Ottawa Senators goalie Ray Emery found something to do in Buffalo after all - win all three Eastern Conference Championship games in Sabreland to put his team in the Stanley Cup Finals.

The real shame in that is Emery is nowhere near the caliber of goalie the Sabres made him out to be. Buffalo made Emery look like the second coming of Patrick Roy, which he most certainly is not.

What it all boils down to, unfortunately for Sabres fans, is that their team didn't show up to play early enough against Ottawa, and when Buffalo decided it was time to get going, the Sabres had practically dug themselves a hole to China. There was no way they were going to get back into the series trailing 3-0 and even 3-1, and it's unfortunate given how well the team played during the regular season.

Buffalo knew it was one of the favorites to win the Cup - how could the Sabres not be after posting the regular season's most points and goals? - yet when Ottawa showed up at HSBC Arena for Games One and Two, it was the Senators who put on a clinic. Too often during Buffalo's final series of the 2006-07 season, the majority of the Sabres looked like they were playing hockey for the first time and not as the seasoned veterans who came up a few defensive injuries shy of a Cup berth last year. They looked confused, they looked gun-shy, they looked unusually slow for a team labeled tailor made for the new NHL - they basically looked defeated before it even began. They did make an effort to turn things around in Games Four and Five, but by then it was too little, too late.

This was a team built to succeed, but when the going got tough against Ottawa, most of the Sabres bailed out. Defenseman Dmitri Kalinin was like a deer caught in headlights the rest of the series after his Game One turnover led to a short-handed goal. Co-captain Daniel Briere did contribute three assists and one huge goal to account for four of his 15 postseason points, but the Sabres needed more in the goal department from a guy who's going to be commanding $6-8 million a season once free agency begins July 1. And I won't beat the dead horse that was the Sabres' lack of power-play proficiency ...

Sabres fans expected a lot more from the team that ruled the league from the start of the regular season. Of course, many people have said many times that it doesn't matter how you do in the regular season. Sure, the President's Trophy was a neat little award that will give Buffalo sports fans starving for anything positive to grasp something to hold them over for a little while. But, since the motto for the season was essentially "Stanley Cup or bust," the President's Trophy becomes Sabres fans' equivalent of four consecutive Super Bowl appearances.

Now, we have to wonder what if for another year. There's about as good of a chance of this version of the Sabres staying intact for next season as you or I have of winning the Mega Millions drawing. That, I think, is what makes the Sabres' loss the most painful.

But, at least it was nice to see the team's other co-captain, Chris Drury, play his heart out and battle though the pain that comes with doing whatever it takes to win. It was heartening to see Adam Mair and Tim Connolly refuse to take shifts off as well, and you've got to feel bad for Ryan Miller, who did absolutely everything he could to carry his team to the Cup finals. Those four, as well as workhorse defensemen Brian Campbell and Henrik Tallinder, deserved better than their early exit. The rest of the team learned the hard way that you reap what you sow.