February 22nd, 2007 is a date that goes down in Buffalo Sabres history, for better or worse. On that day, the Sabres and the Ottawa Senators put the icing on their cake of mutual divisional hatred with a line brawl for the ages.
To set the stage, the Sabres had just eliminated the Sens 4-1 the previous year in the playoffs, with Jason Pominville capping that series with this spectacular shortie.
So Ottawa already didn’t like Buffalo much, and the two teams were again neck-and-neck the following season.
In the second period of the game at the HSBC Arena on Feb 22nd, 2007 the Senators noted cheapshot maestro Chris Neil decided to take matters in his own hands, blindsiding Sabres co-captain Chris Drury.
An immediate melee ensued, and when the dust settled with Neil not receiving a penalty, Sabres coach Lindy Ruff decided he was not nearly done, sending out his ‘goon line’ of fighters Patrick Kaleta, Adam Mair and Andrew Peters with the explicit instructions to “Go out and run ’em”!
That turned into an epic line brawl with running battles everywhere on the ice and the two coaches screaming at each other over the glass.
Here’s ESPN’s game recap –
First, the Sabres got back at the Senators during a wild second-period melee — a brawl that involved all 12 skaters on the ice, including Biron taking on Ottawa goalie Ray Emery.
Then, despite a depleted bench, the Sabres won the game 6-5, when Drew Stafford scored the lone shootout goal Thursday night.
The game was delayed by about 20 minutes as officials issued 100 penalty minutes, 63 against Buffalo.
Peters was ejected as were the two starting goalies Emery and Marty Biron. Ryan Miller came on in relief to win the game for Buffalo.
At last night’s game between the Sabres and the Columbus Blue Jackets, the latest episode of Beyond Blue and Gold was played at the first intermission. The series, which takes an in-depth look at the Buffalo Sabres, featured the line brawl and the fallout from that.
So what do you think, about the brawl or anything around it, or even the BBG video with all the former players?