Sabres can soothe a disappointed city in Game 5

Buffalo Sabres fans poured out of the HSBC Arena after Game 4 Friday to find their city shrouded in a fog.

It was no surprise to find the clouds lying on the earth. After all, the sky had fallen.

With a 4-0 win on Friday, the Carolina Hurricanes tied their Eastern Conference finals series against Buffalo at 2-2, but the mood in western New York is much darker than a deadlock.

Henrik Tallinder broke an arm in Game 3 to become the third Buffalo defenseman lost to injury. His absence and the loss of Teppo Numminen and Dmitri Kalinin showed in Game 4 as the Canes exploited Buffalo's defensive lapses.

Meanwhile, the Hurricanes gained added momentum from their win as goalie Martin Gerber returned to a starting role and handed the Sabres their first shutout of the playoffs.

By Saturday morning, the fog remained and the recriminations were starting.

The fill-in defensemen are impostors.

The Sabres' front office is incompetent for not bringing in more veteran defensemen by the trade deadline.

The moan went up that this series and the Sabres' season of surprise is done, finished, over.

But far from the City of Gloom in a place thought too hot for hockey, the Sabres enjoyed temperatures in the low 80s, saw clouds high in an intact sky and sounded a much brighter note about their prospects tonight in Raleigh.

Sabres goalie Ryan Miller, a rookie whose confident play is one of the reasons Buffalo has come this far, said the team is thankful to be at 2-2 and ready to make it 3-2 in the Sabres' favor.

"If you had said we could be in this position at the end of playoffs -- conference finals, in Carolina, tied 2-2 -- I think we would have taken it in heartbeat," he said Saturday during an interview at the team's hotel.

"Anything we feel disappointed in, throw it out the window. All is forgiven. It's Game 5. One through four don't matter anymore. It's zero-zero essentially. It's best of three. Go out and get the job done."

As for the one who did get the job done for Carolina, Miller's counterpart Gerber, the Sabres' goalie said that change could change again.

Miller noted how intense Gerber looked in goal is his first start since being pulled in Game 2 of the conference quarterfinals.

"It looked like he kept it together pretty well, but the other direction it can go is -- being really intense, having a lot to prove -- is you start doing too much and it blows up in your face," Miller said.

The Sabres will do more to encourage that blow up, said Buffalo center Daniel Briere.

"We didn't do as good a job getting to the front of the net, screening and trying to get to the loose pucks around [Gerber]. We have to do a better job," he said.

The Sabres' weakness on defense is being overstated, Buffalo coach Lindy Ruff said. He added that the defense played well enough and Friday's score hid a strong offensive effort, too.

"We had some really good opportunities [to score]," he said, "You need to finish those."

The Sabres are aware that Friday's loss shook confidence in Buffalo, but Briere said both teams realize this is a series of shifts.

"I know the feeling, talking to reporters, talking to fans, that a lot of people think we're done once again. [They say] Game 4 was the game we had to win to have a chance, but no law has been respected in this series. When one team seems to have the momentum, one comes back."

Buffalo's players and coach are saying what they must, but it's not just "chin up" talk. This series has been back and forth. It was expected to be tight and go to seven games, and it's heading that way.

The key to whether it will won't only be how Buffalo comes back from Game 4 but how Gerber's comeback continues.

In the sunny South, Miller said the doubts never reached the Sabres.

"I think the guys still feel confident in their game," he said. "Both teams have gotten good pushes. It's a great series right now."