A Panther mauling
By Rick Anderson
November 17, 2001
It is bad enough to lose to these teams on the road. But when the Sabres do it in front of their paying home fans, that is a different story. There is no way the Sabres should be losing to teams like Atlanta, Columbus and now Florida in HSBC Arena. A couple years ago, teams would hate to come to Buffalo. They knew that they usually would be leaving without any points. Not any more.
Trevor Kidd blanked the Sabres in a game billed as "Friday Night Fights." Monday the two teams clashed in Miami and Buffalo came out on top of that one 5-3. There were plenty of fights in that game and it was feared that it would spill over into Friday's game. There was a little rough stuff, but the Sabres seemed to be a little intimidated by the bigger and tougher Panthers. It showed on the ice. The lack of physical play by Buffalo allowed the Panthers to capitalize on two of their few chances in the game. That was enough to sink the Sabres even lower into the standings.
The Sabres outshot the Panthers 31-18, but once again they were able to make an opposing goalie look like the second coming of Patrick Roy. Kidd did make some spectacular saves, but the Sabres shooters have the tendency of shooting in areas where the goalie can make the save in a somewhat flashy fashion.
Not that the chances weren't there. The Sabres had plenty of opportunity to put one over, through, around or under Kidd. What they did instead was shoot blanks one more. This is becoming way too common for this team. The Sabres management may have not replenished the team with gunners to compensate the loss of Dominik Hasek and Michael Peca, but this team is still capable of shooting live ammo instead of blanks. Even rubber bullets have more effect than what the Buffalo forwards were shooting against Kidd.
If the preceding words don't hit home, maybe these facts will. This was the second straight loss for the Sabres (both against supposedly weaker teams). It was their third defeat in four games, and seventh in their last ten. On top of that, in three home games against Atlanta, Columbus and Florida the Sabres netted a grand total of two goals. Period!
Now if you aren't mad enough, here's my final salt in the wound: The Sabres raised their ticket prices for this? The Rochester American are playing a better brand of hockey than the Sabres are displaying right now, and their ticket prices are at least half what the Sabres charge. And don't use the minor league excuse. If what the Sabres are playing isn't minor league hockey, what is?
Florida got the only goal it needed in the second stanza when Viktor Kozlov broke the Sabres penalty kill streak at 20 with a powerplay goat at the 2:22 mark of the second stanza. Kozlov took a shot from the right faceoff circle that glanced off Richard Smehlik's skate and past Biron. You could hear the air being sucked out of HSBC Arena after that goal, as when the opposition has scored first against the Sabres, it usually means a Buffalo defeat.
"I'm trying to shoot the puck more this year," said Kozlov. "For years they've been telling me to shoot more. I guess I'm finally listening."
Meanwhile, the "other Kozlov" in this game, Slava, didn't register a point and his production on the ice has been inadequate to say the least. Buffalo certainly got the short end of the Hasek deal as Slava has been a bitter disappointment so far this season. With 5 goals and just one assist (and 3 of those goals were flukes), Kozlov has got to pick his game up tenfold. It is no wonder why Hasek hand-picked Kozlov as the only player the Sabres could get in exchange for him. He must have known something about the inconsistent left winger.
Lindy Ruff must have had his shortest press conference ever, as it lasted not much longer than two minutes. He was brief and to the point.
"I don't think anybody should be happy with that game," a bitter Ruff said. "It's a game where you have to get your nose bloody, you might have to block a few shots, you might have to take a few hits. We had very few individuals who got in the trenches and very few one-on-one battles that we won."
Then he added some more comments that he found hard to swallow:
"We were our worst enemy," Ruff fumed. "It fits the pattern of the Nashville game.. There were opportunities to win battles but they didn't. There were opportunities to finish checks – we didn't."
Biron tried to explain the reason why Buffalo came up short.
"Sometimes the bounces don't go your way," Biron analyzed. "We hit the post a couple times, missed the net by a half inch. Maybe on the two goals if I'm a little bit more active, if I challenge more, you never know."
Then he tried to put himself in the fans position, commenting about the chorus of boos at the end of the game.
"I was a fan once, and it's tough when you love a team and you want your team to win," Biron explained. "But there's nobody in Buffalo that wants to win more than the 25 guys that are in the locker room. If we have to be critical or point fingers, we're going to do it in this dressing room rather than (outside it)."
Panther tough guy Jason Weimer said the Panthers probably threw the Sabres off their game when they didn't come out with the intention of making the game a "Friday night fights" like the pregame billing portended.
"We knew they were a little riled up about the game we had down in Florida," said Weimer. "Tonight we wanted to keep our composure, we didn't want to get into a slugfest. We've got some good skill on our team and it's best utilized when we're five-on-five."
Sabres captain Stu Barnes, who has had a cold hand also as have the other Sabres forwards, was besides himself as to explain the current Sabre slump.
"It's disappointing," Barnes said. "We could have been better. The complete game we're after, a consistent effort, minimizing mistakes for 60 minutes wasn't there tonight. We fell short. We're two games behind .500 with a lot of game left. We'll stick together, battle hard and we'll get out of this"
That definitely remains to be seen. If the Sabres continue to drop from the standings like a lead balloon, the Sabres management will be forced to make some major changes and nobody is excluded from the axe. That would even include the current coaching staff.
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And it gets worse. The plight of the Buffalo Sabres is closely resembling that of the Buffalo Bills these days. Once again, the Sabres lost to a much weaker team at home. Friday night, they were shutout by the Florida Panthers 2-0. What's wrong with this picture?
Sabres goalie Martin Biron is able to stop Panthers center Ryan Johnson after breaking in on the Sabres goalie. Sabres defenseman Alexei Zhitnik comes in to help on the play.
[AP Photo/Don Heupel]
The Panthers tightened their noose around the Sabres necks when Kozlov scored his second straight goal at 18:09 of the middle period. After the Panthers came in on Biron two-on-one, Kozlov put a shot on goal from the opposite circle and Biron got some of it but not enough as it got past and into the net.
Curtis Brown gets his jersey grabben in Panthers defenseman Brad Ference's effort to hold him off the puck in the first period. Florida shutout the Sabres 2-0 in the game.
[AP Photo/Don Heupel]
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