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If there was anything more exasperating for Buffalo Sabres fans than watching the home team blow two, two-goal leads, it had to be NBC’s coverage of the 5-4 overtime loss to Philadelphia on Easter Sunday.

It was exasperating throughout the game but especially in the second period.

While “Inside the Glass” reporter Darren Pang (see right) was on camera yammering about the Flyers change of goaltenders, the Flyers’ James van Riemsdyk scored a goal to cut the lead to 3-2.

There should be a rule against putting a reporter on camera during game action.

Let the game sell itself. Besides, NBC allows so much crowd noise that it is hard to hear what the announcers are saying about half the time.

A few minutes after the van Riemsdyk goal, Mike Emrick, Eddie Olczyk and Pang were talking about some nonsense presumably aimed at the national audience when a key penalty was called against the Sabres.

A viewer might have sensed that a penalty was called because the Buffalo crowd was booing in the background.

Shortly later, the Flyers’ Danny Briere scored a goal to tie the score at 3-3.

You almost hope that NBC doesn’t get any more Sabres games if they beat Philadelphia Tuesday night in game 7 and advance to the next round.

Of course, the game on NBC was the highest-rated of the six played so far with a 23.4 local rating on Channel 2 that represents 23.4 percent of area households. That was about 12 percent higher than the Sabres playoff game with Boston (20.5) on NBC a year ago. So much for the idea promoted in a lengthy story on the front page of Sunday’s newspaper that it would be a tough choice for many local Christian families to choose between Easter dinner and watching the Sabres. (Of course, families could schedule both at times to make a tough call — and the story — unnecessary).    

The four games last week all had very healthy ratings and averaged close to a 20 rating. Monday’s Game 3 Sabres loss had a 17.7 rating. Wednesday’s Game 4 Sabres win had a 19.5 rating, which at that point was the highest in the series. The Sabres overtime win Friday had a 19.1 rating. The six games of the series have averaged a 19.3 rating.

By comparison, the six games in the series that Buffalo lost to Boston in 2010 averaged a 15.8 rating. That’s about a 20 percent increase this year, with Game 7 on MSG (thankfully) Tuesday expected to get a rating in the 20s.

pergament@msn.com

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