I have been waiting to see how the Buffalo Sabres finished their playoff run to give my final take on this years Flyers playoff performance and I think some people need to rethink their analysis.

Everyone was complaining about the Flyers speed or lack there of. People were calling the Sabres-Flyers series old NHL vs. new NHL. In the end SabreSpeed won out over the old slow Flyers, or so it seemed.

After eliminating the Flyers, the Sabres next victim was the Ottawa Senators. The Sabres eliminated them in 5 games, 1 game quicker than the Flyers. Was Ottawa too slow? No, they had plenty of speed, they were just outplayed which seems to be typical for Ottawa in the playoffs. Speed was not an issue.

Then the Sabres lost to the Hurricanes in 7 games. Were the Hurricanes a faster team? Maybe, but again speed was not an issue. Injuries in that series are what caused the Sabres their downfall.

hhhmm, injuries.
The two games the Flyers won in the first round, the Sabres had a couple injured players, Teppo Numminen and Jochen Hecht. So it seems to me if the Sabres are a 100% healthy team they are pretty good, but a couple guys go down and they are vulnerable, just like any other team, like the Flyers were.

Some of the injured Flyers were well known, Captain Keith Primeau was out along with Kim Johnsson and Chris Therien. Forsberg, Kapanen, Hatcher, Rathje, Handzus were all playing injured. What wasn’t publicly known was the extent that other Flyers were injured. 15 players had surgery done after the season and that does not include the concussion injuries to Therien or Johnsson.

While I do agree that picking up some speed on D would make the Flyers a better team, it was not the reason for the first round exit. Injuries were the main reason. If the Flyers were as healthy as the Sabres and Buffalo as injured as the Flyers the outcome would have been very, very different. A sweep wouldn’t have been out of the question. Play without Briere and a decent defenseman and have 80% of the team be 50%-80% healthy and you start to get the picture. The Flyers had been playing basically .500 hockey since January when the injuries caught up with them.

Look, I think Buffalo has a very good team. Some of the fans however need to get over themselves. I know it fun cheering on your team, but the amount of crap that some Sabres fans have spewed has quite frankly been embarrassing. The sad part is it is still happening on some Flyers discussion forums. It’s been over a month since the end up the series! Reading some Hurricane blogs it seems the crap was not directed only at the Flyers.

Yes, the Sabres played with a lot of heart, they played like a team. But did ‘they deserve better since they the best team in the NHL’ as some Sabres blogs has said? When comparing against other teams when healthy, no they don’t deserve better because they are not the best team in the NHL. The Sabres had to deal with injuries the past few weeks like the Flyers did the past 6 months, like other teams did. It’s part of the game.