Preview Game 5 Ottawa v. Sabres

Buffalo needs a win to stay alive in the series and they will have home ice to try to do it on. They are coming off of a tough 3-2 victory in Ottawa in a game where I thought the team played very well. Ray Emery showed that he is still shaky. Ryan Miller showed he is still brilliant. Dainus Zubrus is expected to be out of the lineup for Buffalo. I expect Dan Paille to come into the lineup instead of Drew Stafford. He will be able to fill the penalty killing role left by Zubrus. In the last game, Jaro Spacek play just 9 minutes, although I thought he played well, and even though Dimitri Kalinin played less than 5 minutes, mostly just killing penalties, I thought he played his best game of the series. Because of that, I do not see the defensive pairs changing. I think the forward lineup will be:
Hecht-Briere-Pominville
Roy-Drury-Connolly
Vanek-Gaustad-Afinogenov
Paille-Mair-Kotalik