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Buffalo Sabres vs Philadelphia -NHL Playoff Free Pick – Thursday April 14, 2011

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Buffalo Sabres at Philadelphia Flyers
Thursday, April 14, 2010 at 7:30 pm EST on Versus

Line: Philadelphia Flyers -1.5
Money Line: Buffalo +140 / Philadelphia -160
Over/Under: 5.5

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The No.7 seed Buffalo Sabres renew a longtime playoff rivalry with the No.2 seed Philadelphia Flyers this Thursday night in Game 1 of their best-of-seven first-round matchup in the NHL Eastern Conference playoffs. The puck is set to drop at the Wells Fargo Center at 7:30 p.m. (ET) and the game will be broadcast on VERSUS.

Buffalo comes into this year’s playoffs as one of the hottest teams in the East with just one loss in its last 10 games. It finished the season 43-29-10 with a total of 96 points which is quite an accomplishment after a 3-11 start. The Sabres have played fairly well on the road this season with a 22-13-6 record including a 5-3 win over Philadelphia as a 162 underdog on March 5.

Thomas Vanek and Drew Stafford have provided the bulk of the offensive production for Buffalo this season. Vanek leads the team with 32 goals and 73 points and Stafford has 31 goals and 21 assists. Jason Pominville has also been a key contributor with 22 goals and 30 assists. The Sabres are ranked ninth in the league in scoring with 2.93 goals a game.

Buffalo will look to ride the fortunes of goalie Ryan Miller to get past a faster and stronger Philadelphia team in this series. He started 65 games this season and recorded 34 wins. Ryan has a goals-against-average of 2.59 and a .916 save percentage. The Sabres are giving up an average of 2.78 goals a game which is ranked 18^th in the NHL.

Philadelphia looked like the team to beat in the East for a good part of the season but a 3-4-3 finish down the stretch has cast some doubt on its ability to return to the Stanley Cup Finals for the second year in a row. The Flyers finished the season with the second most points in the East (106) and had an overall record of 47-23-13. They went 22-12-7 at home this season, which was just fifth-best in the conference.

Scoring has been an issue in Philly’s past 10 games with an average of just 2.7 goals a game as compared to its season average of 3.12. Regardless, the Flyers bring a wealth of offensive firepower into this series led by Jeff Carter and Danny Briere. Carter led the team in the regular season with 36 goals and Briere was right behind him with 34. Claude Giroux was the leading point scorer with 25 goals and 51 assists,

Defensively, Philadelphia has missed the presence of Chris Pronger, who is still recovering from a broken hand. It is giving up an average of 2.63 goals a game and is ranked 14^th in the league against the power play with a kill rate of 82.8 percent. Sergei Bobrovsky will be in net for the Flyers in Thursday’s game. He comes into this series with a 2.59 GGA and a save percentage of .915 in 52 starts this season.

Buffalo is 19-18 this season as an underdog and the total has gone ‘over’ in four of its last five games and in 42 of 82 games on the year. Philadelphia is 36-27 as a favorite and the total has gone ‘over’ in five of its last seven games but has stayed under in 45 of 82 games this season.

Head-to-head, these teams split this season with each winning a game at home and one on the road. The Sabres have won the last two including a 4-3 OT victory as a 114 home favorite just this past Friday.

The odds makers have the Flyers as a -1.5 point favorite with an over/under of 5.5.

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Prediction: Buffalo has the momentum coming into this game but the Flyers remain the better team in terms of line-depth and the ability to put the puck in the net. Stick with Philadelphia to squeeze out a win in Game 1 in the comfort of the Wells Fargo Center.

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