Sabres edge Islanders, 3-2
UNIONDALE, N.Y. — The Buffalo Sabres' big boppers are back and so is home-ice advantage.
Unheralded forward Adam Mair bristled at the notion that the high-flying forwards were ever missing.
Mair got Buffalo's offense rolling with a rare goal before serious scorers Thomas Vanek and Daniel Briere finished off a second-period spurt that carried the Sabres to a 3-2 victory over the New York Islanders on Monday night.
That was just enough offense to give Buffalo a 2-1 lead in the first-round, Eastern Conference playoff series. The Sabres split two games at home but only got two of their six goals from forwards.
"I didn't even know that," said Mair, who had two goals in the regular season. "We don't really care who scores. We're just focused on winning the game."
He might not care, but if the top-seeded Sabres are going to build on their Presidents' Trophy victory and make a run toward their first Stanley Cup title, they will need guys like Vanek, Briere and Chris Drury to score.
Drury was the only forward to do it for Buffalo at home in the series, netting two in the Sabres' Game 1 win. Vanek and Briere, the club's top two scorers during the season, joined the fun on Long Island.
In other NHL playoff games, Tampa Bay edged New Jersey 3-2 to take a 2-1 series lead, and San Jose topped Nashville 3-1 at home to grab a similar series edge in the only Western matchup Monday.
But the eyes of the NHL, including commissioner Gary Bettman, were on the Sabres who suddenly were in trouble after leading the league with 53 wins.
Buffalo scored an NHL-best 308 goals this season, including 112 by Vanek, Briere and Drury, and needed to flex its offensive muscle before the upstart Islanders gained too much confidence.
"We have depth of scoring throughout our lines that have kept teams a little bit on their heels," Sabres coach Lindy Ruff said. "We can get rolling, and it can come from any line at any time."
Lightning 3, Devils 2
At Tampa, Fla., Vincent Lecavalier scored his fourth goal of the playoffs, and Brad Richards and Vinny Prospal each tallied their first in helping the host Lightning beat New Jersey.
Johan Holmqvist, who has rebounded from a shaky NHL postseason debut to outplay Devils goalie Martin Brodeur the past two games, stopped 30 shots for the seventh-seeded Lightning.
Brodeur, who entered the playoffs with a 1.89 career goals-against average, has given up three goals in each game of the series. Tampa Bay also won three of four regular-season meetings against Brodeur, who won a league-record 48 games.
At San Jose, Calif., Milan Michalek and Ryane Clowe scored second-period goals, and the Sharks pounded the visiting Predators with 41 shots in a methodical victory.Patrick Marleau scored the clinching goal with 4:26 to play, and Evgeni Nabokov made 19 saves behind the Sharks' relentless offensive attack.
