Senators confident they can close out Buffalo
Ottawa leads the series 3-1 with Game 5 today.
BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) — Disappointed in letting the Sabres off the hook once, Ray Emery and the Ottawa Senators arrived in Buffalo on Friday confident they won’t let that happen again.
“Not to take anything away from them, they had their backs against the wall and performed,” the Senators goaltender said. “But we still believe we control our own destiny. And if we play our game, we’re a very tough team to beat, and we’ll win more often than not.”
The Senators, with a 3-1 lead on the Sabres in the Eastern Conference finals, will get their second crack at clinching their first Stanley Cup finals berth in Game 5 at Buffalo today.
Rather than being down following a 3-2 loss on Wednesday, the Senators sounded more resolved to end this best-of-seven series.
“It’s not pressure. We’re excited,” Emery said. “We’ve been playing well. We’re in the present, we don’t care what we did in the past.”
Sabres gained confidence with win
The Sabres, meanwhile, are hoping to draw upon whatever good feelings they’ve generated after finally figuring out a way to beat their division rivals.
“We’ve heard a lot of rumors that it was over,” Sabres co-captain Daniel Briere said. “I think we gained a lot of confidence in Game 4, realizing we can still make plays, can still win games. We still believe.”
In an attempt to continue nurturing his team’s confidence, coach Lindy Ruff made sure to remind everyone that the top-seeded Sabres — a team that led the NHL in the regular season with 53 wins and 308 goals — didn’t get this far by chance.
“We’re not an 8th seed that snuck into the playoffs,” Ruff said. “We’re a team that went out and had a very good season. We won 10 games in a row. We’ve put together real good streaks, and we have to put one together again.”
Trouble is, the Sabres haven’t played like the superior team.