Sabres strike quickly in OT

Chris Drury figured it wouldn’t take long to settle this shootout.

Drury scored 18 seconds into overtime after Tim Connolly netted his second goal of the night with 10.7 seconds remaining in regulation and the Buffalo Sabres stunned the Ottawa Senators with a 7-6 victory Friday in a wild Eastern Conference semifinal opener at Ottawa.

“Down the stretch, it was pretty amazing how many goals were scored,” Drury said. “Sitting in the locker room you had the feeling it was going to be a quick end.”

The teams scored three goals in the final 1:37 of regulation as Buffalo’s Derek Roy tied it at 5 with a short-handed effort for his second goal of the game – his team-record tying fifth point – at 18:23. But Bryan Smolinski scored his second 24 seconds later during the same power play to give Ottawa its fifth straight lead, 6-5.

“It wasn’t your typical playoff game,” Roy said.

The Sabres pressed for one more, and Connolly got it as he swept a puck that lay within Ray Emery’s reach up and over the rookie goalie to shock the sellout crowd.

“We weren’t going to give up,” Connolly said. “We came back a few times during the hockey game and we’ve been able to come back all year long and we’re never going to give up until the game’s over, and I think that’s a credit to this hockey team.”

Buffalo has been scoring goals in bunches. The Sabres beat Philadelphia 7-1 to clinch the first-round series in which they also had an 8-2 victory.

Game 2 of the best-of-7 series won’t be until Monday because the arena is unavailable over the weekend.

Mighty Ducks 5, Avalanche 0: Teemu Selanne had a goal and two assists against his former Colorado teammates, Anaheim rookie Ilya Bryzgalov logged his second consecutive shutout, and the Mighty Ducks opened the Western Conference semifinals in fine fashion in front of a home crowd at Anaheim, Calif.

Bryzgalov, who started again over Jean-Sebastien Giguere, is the first rookie to post back-to-back playoff shutouts since Toronto’s Frank McCool (Gonzaga University) had three straight in 1945.

Game 2 of the best-of-7 series is Sunday at Anaheim.