“You obviously don’t want to be spotting a President’s Trophy team a 3-0 lead going into the third period,” Rangers forward Brendan Shanahan said. “We weren’t sharp. On the rush, they seemed to kind of walk through us a couple of times. I don’t know if they outplayed us, but they outperformed us.”  The Rangers had the better of the play early, seeming to use the weight of the Sabres’ expectations against them. Jaromir Jagr had a great scoring chance 28 seconds into the game, but Buffalo goaltender Ryan Miller made the first of his 32 saves.  The bad news for the Rangers started early in the second period, when Michal Rozsival, their top defenseman, left the game with a leg injury after a hit by Kotalik. That meant that the Rangers, who were working Karel Rachunek into the defensive rotation for the first time after he missed 16 games with a knee injury, were scrambling to fill a big hole.  “It’s our job,” defenseman Fedor Tyutin said. “You’ve just got to keep going and play for each other. We miss him, but we still have to do what we have to do.”  After the game, Rozsival called his injury mild and Coach Tom Renney characterized him as day to day. The team will practice Thursday, and Game 2 of the best-of-seven Eastern Conference semifinal series will be here Friday.  On top of Rozsival’s absence, the Rangers made things difficult for themselves by taking a string of penalties. By the end of the second period, the Rangers had taken six, from hooking to holding to goalie interference. It was the sixth that cost them Vanek’s goal. And then it cost them much more.  “I think the story of the game was penalties,” Rangers center Matt Cullen said. “They didn’t score on all of them, but it changes the game so much. We have our best players sitting on the bench and their best players are on the ice starting to feel better and better about themselves. It takes so much away from our game.”  It absolutely fed into Buffalo’s game. The Sabres were the highest-scoring team in the N.H.L. in the regular season, and Ruff had come into the series saying that the Sabres would impose their high-powered game on the series. The Rangers prefer a more controlled game that relies on their defense and goalie Henrik Lundqvist.  But after the Sabres scored once, they were flying.  “When we finally got that first one past him, it was, ‘All right,’ ” Sabres center Daniel Brière said of Lundqvist, who also made 32 saves. “For us, it gave us confidence and we just kept attacking.”  The Rangers fought back, getting their first goal from Marcel Hossa — on a terrific pass from Michael Nylander — with 9:16 left in the third period to cut the Sabres’ lead to 3-1. But Jason Pominville restored Buffalo’s three-goal lead about three minutes later. Shanahan scored with 48 seconds left, but Drew Stafford countered with an empty-net goal.  “Playoffs are about dealing with adversity,” Shanahan said. “We’ve talked about that. We pretty much eliminated all adversity in the first round. I don’t know of a playoff team in history that hasn’t had to bounce back. Buffalo is a great team. We know we have to be at our best to beat them and we weren’t at our best. They won because they deserved to.”  Brendan Shanahan was on the ice for six of the seven goals in the game. ... Tom Renney said that he blamed none of the loss on Henrik Lundqvist, because it was breakdowns in front of him that led to Buffalo’s goals.
Buffalo goaltender Ryan Miller stopped the Rangers’ first 29 shots and the Sabres took control of Game 1 with a three-goal outburst in the second period.