SABRES PUSH SUMMER BACK; JAYS HAVE BOSTON'S NUMBER

The Buffalo Sabres managed, thanks to Daniel Brière, to pull out what had seemed a Category Five Stomach Punch game for a city and region that has seen its share through the years, winning 2-1 in overtime last night to send the NHL's Eastern Conference final to a Game 7 on Thursday.

Yes, on June 1, in Raleigh, N.C., one team will be going on to the Stanley Cup final and the other will be starting their summer.

Not that last night was lacking in drama. The Sabres, with key players hurt, others getting by on pills and needles and their hard-done-by fans showing up almost expecting to be heartbroken once again, nursed that 1-0 lead much like a grad student making a pint of beer last an entire evening. Then Bret Hedican put one in with less than five minutes left in the third, and the Sabres had to hold off a Carolina surge late in regulation before winning in overtime.

Alas, it is summer, even if it doesn't officially arrive until June 21. It was above 90 Fahrenheit in Ottawa today. Yours truly is in a minority among Canadian sports fans -- prizing baseball, football and basketball equally alongside hockey -- but even with an Eastern final that's seen the last two games go to overtime, it's been a real strain on the ol' attention span to keep up with this one. I'll level with you: The hockey game had a hard time competing with Jays-Red Sox on Sportsnet and a good paperback novel.

The reality is, though, is that with what all the Oiler hoopla, Buffalo-Carolina has taken on the quality of being the "other" series. If there's blame for this, it's the NHL's fault, for persisting in playing its most important games when even dedicated hockey fans are ready to start their off-season.

That's one of the biggest hypocrisies of Gary Bettman's "new NHL." There was a great opportunity during the lockout for everyone to say they were watering down their product by playing an unnecessarily long 82-game regular season. It should have been lopped by about 10 games or so. On top of that, the teams don't need to use all of September to have training camp. That's for the days when players knew nothing about off-season training and didn't have time for it, since they were so underpaid that they had to spend their summers driving a beer truck back home in Sudbury.

If Tier II Junior A teams can have two weeks of camp, a few exhibition games and start their regular season around Sept. 15, then better-skilled, better-trained NHLers certainly can. With a shorter camp and 72- or 74-game regular season, the playoffs could start in late March, before baseball and the NBA post-season get going, and the Stanley Cup could be awarded in May.

There would be no concern about humid spring days turning the ice into porridge. There would still be a lot of wear and tear on the players, but not as much. It would be more of a test of skill.

So as far Game 7 is concerned, the big off-day question will be how Carolina contains the fallout from the circumstances of Buffalo's winning goal. The Sabres looked like they ran a little interference to create some open space for Brière, which incensed Carolina's bench. Think back to Game 6 of the 2004 Lightning-Flames final and Tampa's OT winner, where Jassen Cullimore interfered with a Calgary player, helping the Lightning time get a shot on net and put in the rebound.

That deflated the Flames, who lost Game 7 two nights later.

The other big question is whether Carolina coach Peter Laviolette will contemplate another goalie switch after having Cam Ward fumble Brière's shot into the net for the winner. Ward played well enough to win, but have you to wonder if that winner might cause doubt to seep through the ranks. Then again, after Martin Gerber was shaky in Game 5, can you really justify putting him back in goal?

Whichever goalie plays for Carolina on Thursday, and whoever wins the series, Edmonton's going to be feeling extra-confident it has the advantage in goaltending. None of the three goalies in this series are at Dwayne Roloson's level.

So what's Carolina's chances in Game 7? They're at home, the Sabres are missing four regulars -- Tim Connolly, Henrik Tallinder, Dmitri Kalinin and Teppo Numminen. Numminen played last night, but logged barely four minutes of ice-time before he had to call it a night.

The Sabres' situation isn't quite like the scene and Dumb and Dumber where Jim Carrey's character is told by the woman he's infatuated with that the chances of them ending up together are "about a million to one" and replies, "So you're tellin' me there's a chance."

There is a chance for the Sabres on Thursday, but it's about 70/30 that Carolina wins.

OTHER BUSINESS

• Yes, about those Blue Jays: Vernon Wells hit three homers last night -- though none so titanic as some of the foul balls launched by Big Papi and Man Ram -- in the Jays' 8-5 win over the Red Sox. During the broadcast, Sportsnet's Jamie Campbell was talking about how Reed Johnson is a Red Sox killer, but maybe he had the wrong outfielder: ESPN.com's Short Hops notes V-Dub has hit eight of his 15 homers against Boston. By the way, the single-season record for most homers against the Red Sox is 11, jointly shared by Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle and Lou Gehrig. You've probably heard about those guys.
  
  The fans of Evil Empire 1-A are in agony over the Jays being 7-3 against the Red Sox this year. The game thread at Sons of Sam Horn ran to 21 pages. It would be a good time to go off on a rant about how Sports Illustrated had it right a few years ago when the listed the Red Sox as most overrated "unhealthy sports obsession," but we mustn't do anything to anger the karma gods. Especially with Ted Lilly pitching for the Jays tonight.
• With David Wells sidelined, Double-A call-up David Pauley will make his MLB debut tonight against the Jays. The one knock on Pauley is that he can struggle with his control, although he had a respectably low 17 walks in 60 1/3 innings in the minors.
• So is Roger Clemens coming back or not?
• There's been a lot of talk about how the NL West is improved across the board after last season when the Padres became the worst playoff team ever in a non-strike year, but when will people start talking about how poor the AL West is this year? The Texas Rangers' 28-24 record not only makes them the only team that's above .500, but it's good for a five-game lead. Not only that, but the A's just lost a second-straight home game to the Royals, who upped their road record to a scintillating 5-22.
• Scott Carefoot explains why Mike James has worn out his welcome with the Raptors, his talent be damned. James is the classic baller who's destined to spend his NBA career occasionally going off for 40-point nights while playing for a string of sub-30-win teams.
• Hometown Breakdown note: Kingston had its big arena vote last night. So when I get up sometime around noon I'll either be reassured or frothing at the mouth.
• Twelve hours later, Stupid Joe is still a putz.