Boos were rough in face of Flyers' effort

ONE BIG MOMENT is all it takes, Matt Stairs was telling a "Daily News Live" audience pregame. One big swing, one big do-good, and Philadelphia fans will forgive a lot of bad, a season's worth in fact.

"In '09, I went 2 months without a hit," said the former Phillie, now a National. "And not one fan booed me."

They booed the Flyers last night. In Game 1 of their defense of their Eastern Conference championship, despite a renewed commitment to forechecking and puck support and responsibility, the Flyers were booed, sometimes lustily, especially toward the end of a 1-0 Game 1 loss to the Buffalo Sabres.

Why? The Flyers began their Stanley Cup quest last night with a renewed sense of purpose. They dived to block pucks, dived to keep them alive, hit people with ferocity and discipline, landing in the penalty box only twice over 60 minutes of play. Yeah, they wasted a two-man advantage for 38 seconds. Yeah, they fired 35 shots at Buffalo goaltender Ryan Miller, had an endless amount of whacks at loose pucks rolling around in Miller's crease without squaring one up, as Stairs would say.

But they were thisclose to the team you fell in love with last spring, the team that spent much of this season playing with the spirit displayed last night. Didn't last year's run buy them any of that feel-good Stairs received after his dramatic home run in the 2008 postseason?

"I think they were just frustrated," Flyers defenseman Sean O'Donnell said in the losing locker room afterward. "A lot of people had questions how we're going to respond after our February and March . . . "

At practice Wednesday, Flyers coach Peter Laviolette spoke about the clarity of preparing for one opponent rather than a league. In the early going, strategies for both teams emerged. Braydon Coburn's puckhandling and skating ability were troublesome for the Sabres, as he cut through the neutral zone several times that period to create offense. The Flyers dominated periods of the first period, had the better of play in the second, and really won the territorial battle. Sergei Bobrovsky was fine. James van Riemsdyk was a machine. Benched several times late in the season for inattentive play, Ville Leino showed up big-time, forechecking effectively, creating turbulence in the Sabres zone, even giving and receiving a big hit.

So why boo?

"The fans have waited for a winner for a long time here," O'Donnell said. "And last year teased them a little bit."

So did the months before February and March, when the Flyers looked like hockey's most complete team. But here's the thing: They looked every bit like that team last night, with two notable exceptions. They didn't have Chris Pronger. And they didn't pitch enough tents in front of Miller's crease.

No one knows when or whether the first exception is removed. Pronger's right hand is still too weak to put anything on a puck, which is why Danny Syvret was out there. Early in the third period of a scoreless game, Syvret lost Patrick Kaleta for only a moment, and it cost the Flyers this game.

"I took a swing at his stick, missed it, and it went in from there," Syvret said.

But Syvret was right when he said, "We'll get more chances as the series goes on. We just have to bear down a little more. There were a lot of times when we had chances when the puck was kicking around in the crease, and we just couldn't get it up."

"Even though we didn't win tonight," O'Donnell said, "there was a big difference from the way we played the last 20 games."

For 2 weeks, Danny Briere has said this team was close to busting out of its end-of-season doldrums. And, yeah, they didn't get off a shot on one power play, and their passing with the advantage, while more accurate and structured, was not quick enough to create chaos in the crease.

But the effort was not boo-able, not in a Game 1, not after what they showed you last year and for parts of this one. There was boosted confidence in the dressing room afterward, because they know if they repeat this effort, the result is not likely to repeat itself.

The Flyers played winning hockey last night. They just didn't win.

"We'll be all right," O'Donnell said.

"We've just got to get some of those greasy-type goals," van Riemsdyk said. "We've got to keep doing what we're doing getting pucks to the net. And we've got to do a better job getting those second opportunities." *

Send email to donnels@phillynews.com. For recent columns, go to

www.philly.com/SamDonnellon.