Sabres prove to be younger, faster than Flyers

The more Ken Hitchcock said it, the less convincing it sounded.
"It was their tenacity, not their speed," Hitchcock said, explaining how the Buffalo Sabres odds beat his Flyers, 3-0, Sunday to regain control of this first-round playoff series. "It's not their speed."
He didn't click his heels and say there's no place like home, but he may as well have.
Hitchcock's dilemma is this: If he acknowledges that the younger, faster Sabres are winning because they're younger and faster, he doesn't leave his older, slower players much reason to believe they can come back and win this series. So Hitchcock stressed "tenacity" and "battles on the boards" rather than the fact that there always seem to be seven or eight Sabres on the ice.
They get to every loose puck first. They get back on defense, negating Flyers rushes. They weave their way around and through Philadelphia's defense, making the Flyers look as if their skates are welded to the ice.
Oh, and the Buffalo power play is a thing of beauty to watch unfold. Every pass has purpose. The Sabres are skilled, they're creative and they move in uncanny sync. After watching their high-definition attack, the Flyers' power play looks like a game of Pong on a snowy black-and-white TV.
While the answers seem obvious from the stands and the press box, the Flyers sure seemed puzzled about their slow starts in all five games.
"After they scored, we decided to play," Simon Gagne said. "It's playoff time. It's not acceptable for a team not to be ready to play. We need to find a way to get momentum right away."
"I can't put my finger on it," Mike Knuble said. "We've done it every game. It's been one of our most pressing concerns. I don't know what it is."
"There's no excuse," Brian Savage said. "Some guys seemed flat and some guys had it."
The nagging feeling here is that the Sabres make the Flyers look so listless. Maybe Buffalo coach Lindy Ruff gives great pregame speeches. Maybe it's the music they play in the locker room. Whatever it is, the Sabres come out of the tunnel playing at full speed.
The Flyers? It took them almost 13 minutes to get their first shot on goal Sunday. By then, the Sabres had taken 10. They also had a 1-0 lead.
"We seem to settle in after a few minutes," Knuble said. Earlier in the series, Hitchcock described it perfectly. The Flyers "wade in" to each game.
The Sabres do a cannonball into the deep end.