Flyers-Buffalo series up for grabs, thanks to Miller

BUFFALO - Games are made of moments, of memories, of photographs burned into your consciousness. This one came with 8 minutes, 53 seconds remaining last night.

It had been an outrageously good hockey game between the Flyers and the Sabres in what has developed into an outrageously good playoff series. The Sabres were leading by 1-0, needing a victory to even the series at two games apiece.

It all happened so quickly. Flyers defenseman Matt Carle somehow managed to keep in a puck at the blue line, then spotted teammate Danny Briere, alone in front of Sabres goaltender Ryan Miller. Somehow, through traffic, Carle got the puck to Briere.

It was as if time stopped in HSBC Arena.

Eight minutes, 53 seconds.

All eyes focused on the two of them. Briere was flat-footed and in close when he received the puck. It was not as great a position as it looked but, because of the time and the circumstances and the fact that it was just the two of them - really, two men, alone - it will be hard to shake the memory.

Forehand, backhand, forehand - Briere stickhandled as he stood, essentially in Miller's lap, desperately trying to create an opening. Finally, he snapped off a wrist shot that Miller gloved. The building erupted. It was the save of the series.

And when he thought back on it, forehand, backhand, forehand, Briere was asked whether he ever saw even a blink of an opening.

He answered quickly.

"No," he said.

Miller was in the newspapers yesterday saying that Briere has been yapping a bit during the series. Last night, Briere said, "I don't know what he was talking about yesterday. I haven't said a word to him. That's not a big deal."

He is right. Words are just that. The play is the thing, the games, the moments within the games. Few people around here will forget that one. As Sabres coach Lindy Ruff said, "The Briere opportunity was about as good as it gets."

"It was good for the game," Miller said. "It was good for the moment. I was happy to be there to make the save. I kind of recognized he didn't have a lot of speed, obviously, because of where he received the puck. He was just trying to get me to open up. I just wanted to get my glove as close to his blade as I could. It wasn't so much reactions - it was anticipation that he was going to try to get it over me initially, and maybe spread me out. That read worked out."

Miller has been good and he has been fortunate, just as Brian Boucher has been for the Flyers. The Sabres hit two posts behind Boucher in Game 4, and the Flyers also hit two (by Darroll Powe and Dan Carcillo) and missed out on another great chance in the first period when Sabres defenseman Tyler Myers managed barely to deflect a James van Riemsdyk shot ticketed for an open net.

Along the way, Miller got into a little shoving thing with Carcillo in his crease, and seemed to feed off of the emotion in the building.

But it still comes down to these moments.

Eight minutes, 53 seconds remaining.

"I'm standing still there," Briere said. The Flyers' dressing room was nearly empty of reporters at this point. His face is marked now by welts, admission tickets to the places where Briere chooses to roam.

"If you're coming with speed, you can move either way and go around him," he said. "But I was standing still. I'm not a guy with a long reach, so basically all he had to do was make himself big. I tried to go to one side and get it through him, but that's about all I had. I was too close, without speed, and with a goalie of his caliber - he's a quick goalie, he's got long legs, he's got fast legs, too.

"As good as it looks, it's not a very good position to be in without speed."

Still, it was unforgettable, this frozen moment on ice. A great series now has a signature moment after four games. We can only imagine if it will hold up through six games, or seven.

"It's fun to play against the best in the world, and they have some of them over there," Miller said. "It's sure fun to beat them. We're happy to square the series.

"Danny's a competitor. I'm going to respect that. I'm not going to brag, I'm not going to do anything. I was happy to make that save, but I have a lot of work and I'm going to see a lot of Danny and I'm going to see a lot of the Flyers."

That seems to be the only certainty, as we careen now into the unknown.

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