None of the players were understating the importance of tonight’s win. It was epic. It was huge. Fail tonight and you can start kissing the postseason goodbye.

The Buffalo Sabres crawled back into the playoff hunt tonight at HSBC Arena, defeating the Florida Panthers, 3-1, gaining a desperately needed two points in the tightly packed Eastern Conference standings.

The capacity crowd of 18,690 were barely settled in their seats, when Jaroslav Spacek lit the lamp to give the Sabres a 1-0 lead, Spacek’s 8th goal of the season. Florida would tie the score midway throught the period, before Danny Paille got the go ahead goal and eventual game winner later in the period, streaking down the left wing and flicking a wrist shot from the slot past netminder Tomas Vokoun.

The second period saw no scoring, though Thomas Vanek’s open net backhand near the 5 minute mark was speared in the air by Vokoun, denying a sure goal and leaving Vanek shaking his head in disbelief. Both teams killed two penalties each during the second period with little difficulty.

Buffalo got into bad penalty trouble midway through the third period, with Henrik Tallinder and Jason Pominville both in the box, giving Florida a 5 on 3 advantage for over a minute. Lalime made a couple great saves during that kill, and Buffalo managed to fend off the Panthers attack with no damage. “That was a momentum changer for us,” said Coach Lindy Ruff. Defenseman Jaroslav Spacek added, “We gave them no real shot lanes through the entire kill, and just managed to be in the right place to get the puck out of trouble. Once we got through those two shorthanded situations, I knew that the momentum would be with our team and this game was ours. It was a 60 minute effort by this entire room. Everyone did well.”

With less than five minutes to go, Jochen Hecht had a glorious chance to put the game away on a 3 on 2 break, but fired the puck just inches wide of the open Florida net.

That rush earned the Sabres a power play, and this time the Sabres capitalized, with Thomas Vanek scoring his 34th of the season on a good bounce off of Derek Roy’s block while Florida was attempting to clear the zone. This would be all the insurance Buffalo would need and the Sabres closed out the game 3-1.

For the Florida Panthers, this was Richard Zednik’s first appearance in Buffalo since his horrific cut to his carotid artery suffered on Buffalo ice thirteen months ago. While mothers all across Amherst raced to their local sporting goods stores to buy their hockey kinds neck guards, Zednik did not opt to get himself that extra protection. After the game he said, “It was just like any other game. I did think about it for a bit though.”

Once again, the Sabres got little help on the out of town scoreboard, which has been cutting against the team all week long. Pittsburgh overcame a 3-0 third period deficit to tie and then lose in a shootout, earning one point. The Rangers also won tonight, although Carolina did lose, and that still leaves the Sabres in 10th place, 3 points out of a playoff spot, but just 5 points out of 5th place.

With these standings wound as tightly as they ever will be, does the team have a sense of playoff urgency? Coach Ruff replied, “If we’re not there, we’re pretty darned close.”

Atlanta comes to town this Saturday. Yet another must win. Yet another incredibly important two points at stake. Puck drops at 7:05PM.

TARO SEZ…

In the building tonight was icon Gilbert Perreault, sitting in one of the suites and earning a great ovation when he was shown on the video board. Of course, Perreault’s signature video “The Wonder of You” played after the game, as is tradition whenever the Sabres notch a W.