The media and fans were proclaiming all week that the Sabres would sweep the Isles and that New York didn’t even merit any concern. Today, those very voices of super optimism wake up with egg all over their faces. It may take them a week to get their feet extracted out their mouths.

All Stanley Cup celebrations must be put on hold, at least for now. It is time for those brazen radio hosts and some fans to wake up and smell reality! The Sabres will not have a cakewalk getting past the Islanders, no matter how much those on this one sports talk radio station had fans convinced. Proclamations that the Isles didn’t have any chance against the "much more talented" Sabres by hosts of that station probably were replayed for the Islanders to listen to before the game by Ted Nolan.

The Islanders came out loaded for bear as they contained the Sabres in their own zone the entire first period, taking a quick 2-0 lead against the shocked and apparently immobile Sabres.

It was said here that one of the biggest weaknesses of this Sabres team is overconfidence, an attitude that all they have to do is to lace on their skates and they will win games. That is not the case in the NHL and it takes the kind of effort that the Islanders put forth Saturday night in Buffalo to win games. Talent is good, but effort is the key ingredient to winning playoff games. The Sabres just didn’t have any effort in most of the game and because of their laid-back, lackluster performance in Game 2 the Isles have stolen away the home ice advantage the Sabres worked so hard for.

It could almost be predicted. So many times this season, the Sabres have coasted, resting on their laurels and the result of their half-hearted performances has always cost them dearly. Not only weren’t the Sabres skating with their usual intensity Saturday night, but goalie Ryan Miller went back to his old habits of allowing soft goals, two of them in fact.

Miller was completely outplayed by fellow U.S.A. goalie Rick DiPietro, who was playing his first game in weeks after suffering from post concussion symptoms. DiPietro was stellar in nets, making 32 saves and was the third defenseman back for the Isles, making great clearing passes from behind the net.

The Sabres fell quickly behind when Trent Hunter's long shot from the point got through Miller’s five hole at 3:11 into the first period. The Isles upped that to 2-0 and put a pall in HSBC Arena, which had been rocking before the game, when Bruno Gervais snuck one by Miller. Both goals were definitely shots that DiPietro would have no trouble stopping. Miller, who has been inconsistent all season long, has to match the level of play of DiPietro if the Sabres are to get by the Islanders. He just was not playoff ready on Saturday.

The Sabres finally got on the scoresheet when Toni Lydman’s shot went off an Islander defenseman. After a scoreless second period, the Sabres actually tied it when Dmitri Kalinin finally tapped in a rebound in front of DiPietro. It followed a wild scramble where DiPietro made 4 straight saves from point blank range.

The Isles got a gift penalty when Maxim Afinogenov had his stick held by ex-Sabre Miroslav Satan when Afinogenov got his stick up to Satan’s waist. It didn’t take long for Marc-Andre Bergeron’s long shot from the point to blister past Miller on the far side. It was the game winner as the Sabres could not get another puck past DiPietro.

The intensity level is what the Sabres have to get back. It switched teams on Saturday, as New York was much more driven than Buffalo. Ted Nolan has a way to get the most out of his players and that was evident on the ice in Game 2. Sabres coach Lindy Ruff has to take a page out of Nolan’s book if he wants to win back home ice advantage.

"We just weren’t moving," admitted Ruff. "We weren’t getting there. You’ve got to give them some credit because they were really skating. They were doing a tremendous job backchecking. They were coming right up our forwards and picking pockets."

Hopefully the Sabres learned a valuable lesson that this won’t be an easy series like fans and media had falsely proclaimed all week. In fact, if they don’t get their act together and take the Isles seriously, it could be a short series after all, with the Islanders winning in 5.

Players like Daniel Briere, Jason Pominville and Thomas Vanek have yet to live up to their potential. In fact, Briere hasn’t scored a goal in weeks. These players and the rest of the Sabres have to wake up and play desperate hockey. If they don’t the Isles will pull off a huge upset.

When asked if the Sabres are taking the Islanders lightly, defenseman Toni Lydman said, "We shouldn’t. There’s no easy games. It’s only going to get harder. Maybe this was our last chance to learn that lesson." 

Speak about giving the opposition fodder for their bulletin board, almost every announcer on this one sports radio station had their fans whipped up into such a gung-ho attitude this past week that it was sickening. It is OK to be optimistic, but to literally guarantee that the Sabres were in no way going to lose any games to the Islanders is a recipe for heartache and disaster. One host went so far as to say that as soon as he heard the Sabres were going to be playing the Islanders, he said that he immediately asked "who is our next opponent."

"The Islanders simply do not match up with the Sabres, from top to bottom," he boastfully avowed. It wasn’t only this one host, but all 6 of their on-air personalities were way overconfident of a Sabres sweep.

To make matters worse, all of these radio hosts were saying that there wasn’t a team in the Eastern Conference that stood any chance against the Sabres. It was only when they were trying to figure out who their Stanley Cup Final opponent would be that they started to give any kind of respect to the opposition.

This smug arrogance was so out of line, that it almost seemed to be a joke. This is something that one would expect out of a New York City station, not Buffalo. Buffalo hasn’t won anything since 1964, and even then, it was the upstart American Football League. The announcers on this particular radio station seemed to forget quickly what can throw a wrench into the championship journey. These phrases should have knocked them back to reality: "Wide right, no goal, phantom Philly goal, homerun throwback." Then there was just last year when 6 injuries to the Sabres defensive corp prevented the Sabres from reaching their goal.

To disrespect an opponent like these radio personalities did and whipping their listeners into believing all their propaganda, is a mockery to objective reporting. I am sure the presumptuous radio personalities have heard of the slogan for the NFL, "On any given Sunday." The same holds true for hockey. No team is capable of winning every game during the season. On any given night, the opposition can turn things around and upset the heavy favorite. Both the NFL and NHL have reached parity and in the Stanley Cup playoffs it takes a stellar effort to sweep another team in a 7 game series. Yet, these announcers were betting their houses and their reputations that there wasn’t any chance the Isles were going to win one game, much less the series. Here’s hoping that some listeners to that station taped some of their boastful dribble and will play it back to them the next few days. They certainly deserve all the flak they get from fans who had their feet on the ground and were sickened by the bravado that polluted the air waves all last week. It wouldn’t be surprising if all those arrogant announcers call in sick next with a severe case of foot in mouth disease!

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