The two top teams of the entire regular season sqaured off in what will be an annual meeting in the conference finals. 

Going into the series it looked as if the result would be a 4 or 5 game win for the Sabres as they had come steaming into the Eastern Conference Finals (ECF) after battling a tough Carolina squad in seven games getting the team battle ready, knowing the importance of every game after the Carolina series the Sabres startin rolling and crushed the Senators in 4 easy wins, adding to their prowess coming into the ECF was the rest they had gained after the Thrashers took a different direction into the series where they beat both the Canadians and Flyers in 6 hard hitting games.

In their first battle in the playoffs against each other round 1 went to the Thrashers in 5 games as the Sabres couldnt get things going like in the regular season. (spelling correct PHO lol) Here is a game by game recap.

 Game 1: After a mix up in communication's/clarification's*/irrational G.M (atl).. The true story of the game was Sidney Crosby and Jerome Iginla. Crosby had 5 points and Iginla a Hat Trick. even with the mis-communication's/ clarification's*/irrational G.M (atl) the results probably wouldnt have changed with the effort of the Sabres top line.

Game 2: In game two the Thrashers iced a new set of lines to the team as they had been wrong in the judgement of a rule, not knowing how the team would do with Chara not covering up for the hole on our team that is the rookie's on the blue-line Ranger-Smid. With the fired up speech from Ales Hemsky the teams leader the team stormed out to a 3-0 first period lead and went on to win 4-1, in the game every line for the Thrashers got a goal. Hecht-Fillpulla-Pandalfo-Cole scoring them. In net Henrik Lundqvist bounced back after being chased from the net in game 1.

Game 3: In the first game back in the DogPound Arena (mike vick sponsorship) the fans were going crazy and the team responded jumping on the visiting sabres in a 3-0 first period very similar to the game two lead the team got. Iginla popped a late goal in the third but the Thrashers held on for a 3-1 win, and their first lead in the ECF.

Game 4: The fans were lined up 3 hours before puck drop tail gaiting in the parking lot at DogPound Arena. Crosby opened the scoring but Doan and Chara answered for the home Thrashers keeping the fans juiced through the first intermission which carried over into the 2nd where Hecht got a PP goal to take a 2 goal lead the team wouldnt give up even though Jerome Iginla made it 3-2 thats as close as Buffalo came as Henrik Lundqvist shut the door in the third.

Game 5: The tired tired Thrashers had to sleep on the plane after being alerted their plane got caught before it could get on the runway by supportive Thrashers fans wanting to wish the team good luck. the reports have the number of people to be in the 50,000 range at the airport a crazy crazy seen to send of the Thrashers to play in Buffalo the following night.  The team had to go to a new lineup once again for this pivotal game with franchise player Dany Heatley sidelined after a cheapshot by Sidney Crosby had him sidelined for the game. Even with the new lines it was apparent to the team's G.M that the same spark that had been their for the previous 3 wins wasnt their in the locker room after the announcement Dany wasnt going to be able to play, so during the pre-game skate against the Sabres in such a pivotal game the teams G.M went down the bench and told coach Trotz, "THIS IS THE GAME WE GOT RAY FOR TRUST ME" with that the coach called his team off the ice where he told them Ray was starting and the first to stand up was Henrik Lundqvist saying, "coach i agree Ray gives us an energy we need on this back to back night, i tired coach i play hard game last night please dont think i be angry, i want what best for team." With the new lines and a new energy from the new goaltender the team jumped on the Sabres again in the first getting up 2-0 early, from there the Sabres showed why they were so dominate taking over the game and evening the score in the 3rd. This game headed into overtime with the outlook of a Sabres win after catching the Thrashers in the third and the fans giving the home team a big boost it seemed eventual for a goal, but early in the overtime goalie Ray Emery made an amazing glove save on the overtime PK against Jerome Iginla, but pulled his hamrstring in the process, coming off the bench in relief after getting some rest on the bench all night Henrik Lundqvist shut the door for the rest of the PK and then later in the 1st OT the teams franchise blue-liner ended the series on a blistering top shelf slapshot on a set-up from playoff stud Olli Jokinen. From there the team swarmed goalie Lundqvist and GWG getter Chara.



Overall Summary- The Thrasher were able to shut down the vaunted Sabres PP of Iginla-Zetterberg-Crosby. The Chara lead PK shut the pp out 17 straight times to end the series the Sabres didnt get a PP goal in the last 3 games which was the turning point in the series...
 

G.M Comments, "This was a great battle for our squad not once until obviously Zdeno scoring did I feel like we were going to win this series, everytime you skate Brodeur-Crosby-Iginla-Zetterberg-Kopitar-Brown-Higgins-Bouwmeester-Blake-Hatcher-Carter-Weber out there THAT team could win 10 straight games at any given point.. We look forward to the annual meetings with the Sabres in the conference finals as his line-up + youth its rediculous to think hes adding Johnathon Toews, Devin Setoguchi, Daniel Girardi,  Eric Johnsson, Jonas Hillier to his already loaded roster he will get these 5 guys for under 3.5 mill total which is a sick offseason addition allready, prior to his draft of 14 picks which should net him some sick talent obviously. We thank Luke for his class in his defeat and appreciate the Jim Rome clips u add to the messageboard LOL."