Music to listen to:  Ghetto Life by Rick James

While many argue that the biggest rivalry among the Original Six franchises, Boston and Montreal, will meet in this year’s playoffs, the biggest rivalry among teams that entered the NHL in the first “expansion” era in 1967 has been Philadelphia against Buffalo.

The two franchises met in the 1975 Stanley Cup Finals with the Flyers earning their second-consecutive championship that season.

Since than they’ve met seven times in the playoffs with Philadelphia holding a 4-3 series lead over Buffalo.  The last playoff meeting came in 2006 in a series that the Sabres won 4-2.

This season, the two teams split the season series with two wins each.

Keys to the series:

1)  Can Philadelphia return to its winning ways?

The defending Eastern Conference champions were one of the top teams in all of the NHL for the majority of the season but finished the year 9-9-7 to fall into second place in the East.  So instead of getting an inferior Rangers squad in the playoffs, the Flyers get a scrappy Sabres squad that has been one of the hottest teams in all of the NHL and have a goaltender who can steal a series.

While missing Chris Pronger, the Hall of Fame defenseman, for a month has been a hinderance for the Flyers, Philadelphia does have a potent offense that goes three lines deep.  The Flyers have three centers, Claude Giroux, Danny Briere and Jeff Carter, who have more than 60 points this year.

2)  Which goalkeeper will Philadelphia play and more importantly stick with?

If you follow the NHL, especially during the playoffs, you know that the Flyers always seem to find themselves in the same predicament.  They have a good young, but inconsistent goalkeeper along with a veteran net-minder who has arguably seen better days.

This season is no different with Caldor Trophy (rookie of the year) candidate Sergei Bobrovsky posting 28 wins this season but had inconsistent efforts in the last few games, including giving up three goals and posting only seven saves in the Flyers’ season finale against Long Island last Saturday.

Playing the role of the veteran for Philly is Brian Boucher, who has also played the role of the young goalkeeper once in his career, so he has that going for him.

Seriously, the melodrama of the goalkeeping in Philly has undermine the Stanley Cup aspirations of the Flyers in the past.

Last season, the Flyers choose to stick with Michael Leighton and he led them to the Stanley Cup Finals.  Obviously he wasn’t the only reason for the run but the consistency helped.

Now, Leighton is now back in the picture to play for the Flyers this year along with Bobrovsky and Boucher.  The more things change…

3)  Can Ryan Miller propel the Sabres to the promised land?

Buffalo has had heroic goalkeeping in past playoff series, particularly from Dominik Hasek.  Can Miller do the same?

The reigning Vezina Trophy (top goalkeeper award) winner had another solid season and posted his sixth-consecutive season of 30 or more wins with 34 .  However, he did have his most losses in a season in three years and also saw an increase in his goals against average and decrease in his saves percentage from last season.

Furthermore, he missed a week late this season with an upper-body injury, which can mean anything from fatigue to a broken collarbone in extreme diagnosis when it comes to hockey injury diagnosis.  Miller did play some in Buffalo’s final two contests of the regular season but didn’t play a complete game in either case.

We’ve seen Miller’s heroics under pressure, particularly in the 2010 Olympics for the United States, but can he translate this success into the playoffs?

4)  Can Buffalo get more scoring from somebody else besides Thomas Vanek and Drew Stafford?

We know that Buffalo is going to play solid defense and have Ryan Miller but its hard to win four contests in a playoff series by the score of 1-0.  Who will step up for the Sabres?

Prediction:  Buffalo in seven

I don’t like how Philly ended its season.  Its difficult to play competitive playoff hockey when you”ve been an average team for the previous two months.  I think that the Philadelphia goalkeeping will let it down and the Sabres find just enough goals to get past the Flyers in this round.

Plus, I will always support a team from New York state over anything in Philadelphia. Forget journalist equity, I’m showing my bias!  Screw the Flyers!