Raise your hand if you did not see this coming?

Buffalo was the better team for 42 minutes in Game 4 before Boston stormed back to take it in double overtime. The Sabres controlled Game 5 from the initial drop and kept their season alive with a 4-1 victory at HSBC Arena in Buffalo on Friday.

The Bruins may be up in the series, but the Buffalo has controlled significant portions of play. Despite winning three games to put the Sabres on the verge of elimination, the Bruins have only had a lead in the series for a little less than 20 minutes, or one of the 13 plus periods played through the first five games.

What the Sabres could not do on Wednesday, they did on Friday. It was reminiscent of those first 42 minutes from the previous game – aggressive on the puck, opportunistic around the net, active stick checks and hard hits all around. There were times in Game 4 when it looked like the Bruins defense would hand Buffalo the lead with giveaways on the blue lines or in the neutral zone (looking at you, Dennis Wideman) but Tuukka Rask was able to erase the mistakes.

That did not happen on Friday. Turnovers and lost battles led to Buffalo’s first two goals – a wrap-around by Adam Mair at 1:54 and a Jason Pominville rebound off a Derek Roy shot at 18:54, both if the first period.

The Sabres energy, especially without Thomas Vanek and Jochen Hecht to score some goals, has really been what has spurred their play. A lot of attention has been given to the Bruins ability to comeback against Ryan Miller and their grit but it has all been in despite of what Buffalo has been doing on the ice. As a team, it is scrappy and it is angry and it is desperate. If the Bruins want to advance, they cannot let Buffalo dictate like they did in Game 5 or their feel good 3-1 series lead go under like a sinkhole in Florida. 

Here is the Hat Trick from Game 5:

PLAYING WITH FIRE

This has been a sidebar more than a lesson in the first four games, but it is more than worth mentioning if it continues through Games 6 and possibly 7.

That would be letting in the first goal of the game in the first ten minutes of play for the fifth consecutive game. Buffalo has been growing significantly more efficient at it as time has gone by: Game 1 – 4:52 (Thomas Vanek), Game 2 – 2:55 (Tyler Myers), Game 3 – 6:57 (Michael Grier), Game 4 – 2:02 (Tim Kennedy).

Game 5 was 1:54 on a whip-cord by Mair that zipped far side on Rask. With the likely Vezina Trophy winner and Olympic darling Ryan Miller along with a stout Buffalo defense on the other side, going down a goal early is like leaving a fat kid alone in a German chocolate boutique store – potentially bad for the store owner but best not to take the chance.

This stat has been beaten into the ground a little bit, but it scores the point in how much Boston has been playing with fire with Miller – 30-0-0 in regular season when heading into the third with a lead and then again when Buffalo took a 2-1 lead in Game 1.

The longer the Bruins wait in this series to reverse this trend, the more ammunition Buffalo can stockpile. Initial reports of Vanek having a high-ankle sprain are false as he has participated in Sabres on-ice workouts and could be a go for Game 6, giving Boston all sorts of headaches if he is physically capable of playing like the star that he can be. 

Then there is Miller, who is a Vezina Trophy candidate not because he has been hot over the second half of the season, the way Rask has been, but because he trailed Rask in goals against average and save percentage while playing in 24 more games than the Finnish rookie. Miller is the type of goaltender that can carry a team through a playoff series, even down two games and then another series, or two. Best to go back to Boston for Game 6 and step on his throat and squelch the smoke before a real inferno starts.

GETTING DOWN TO STAY UP 

A big reason that the Bruins have been able to get up in the series is because they have been willing to throw their bodies in front of would-be shooters. Wideman and Johnny Boychuk have been proficient in the art of the blocked shot and Boston as a whole has done quite well, especially attacking shots from the blue line.

To block shots one has to have a bit of a masochistic nature. It is going to hurt and to keep on doing it over and over means the person has either come to live with the pain or enjoys it on some level. There is also a measure of pride in the action to consequence proportion of shot blocking – I sacrificed myself therefore I frustrated somebody else.

But really, teams that do not have a lot to play for tend to not seek physical pain. Buffalo had everything to play for on Friday and their desperation factor was at max tilt and the margins show it. The Sabres blocked 26 shots, the Bruins nine. Only two Bruins players (Zdeno Chara and Matt Hunwick) had as many as two blocked shots while six Sabres had at least three with Toni Lydman leading with four. 

The epitome of Buffalo’s style was when Michael Grier, who had scored a goal in the second period, threw himself in front a Wideman shot with a three goal lead in the third. The shot nailed him in the upper regions, either the shoulder, helmet or face and he laid on the ice for about a minute before getting up on his own and getting to the bench to go down the tunnel.

A big problem with the Bruins this year is that a bunch of times they have gone on to some success and then went dormant because they come out flat thinking things were well in hand. Late season losses to Tampa Bay and Florida are good examples and the 17 blocked shot disparity in Game 5 is proof that the Bruins may have lost their edge just enough on Friday to upset the peculiar balance they had gained in the series and tilt it back to the point where Buffalo was a better team, by three goals. 

RUFF IT UP 

Sabres coach Lindy Ruff likes to stir things up a touch more than Boston’s Claude Julien. Ruff recognized that the solid play of small (for the NHL at least) center Vladimir Sobotka was becoming a big difference maker in the series. So on Thursday he threw a little bit of a line out towards the Bruins and Sobtoka, saying that he would put Tyler Ennis (5-foot-9) on Sobotka.

Ruff can be sarcastic at times, but this jibe was a little more foretelling than when Ruff said he would sick Ennis on Chara. The matchup of Ennis and Chara made sense because the speedsters are exactly what gives the tallest man in NHL history trouble. Telling Ennis to go after a guy more his size but is much more physical portended a Sabres approach to Sobotka that he had not seen from them in the first three games – beat up the little guy.

Sobotka and by extension his wing mates of Blake Wheeler and Michael Ryder, who both played great in Game 4, were less than optimal on Friday. Ruff keyed on the center and effectively took an entire line out of Julien’s hand. It was easier for Ruff to do that in Buffalo, where he has the last change and can make the matchups he wants, but it will be interesting to see how Julien counters that type of approach come Monday.