Feisty Sabres maul Leafs
By Rick Anderson
February 8, 2003
The Sabres have never had trouble getting up for the Leafs. The Maple Leafs have not had a pleasant time visiting Buffalo the last decade. Even though it may seem like a home game for the Leafs as their fans make the commute to Buffalo and pack half the house with their boisterous fans. Thursday, the Leafs came up against a stone wall and received a mauling from the likes of Rob Ray, Chris Gratton, Adam Mair and Eric Boulton. The Leafs left Buffalo with a 4-2 loss in a game they desperately needed to climb the NHL Eastern Conference ladder. Instead, Toronto suffered its second straight loss in a game that turned into a slugfest.
Right off the bat, the Leafs and Sabres were at each other's throats. In a span of only 36-seconds playing time, there were 3 heavy weight fights. The Leafs started the fights when Toronto defenseman Bryan McCabe mugged the Sabres Adam Mair. When all the players on the ice charged into the pile of bodies, Ray and Alexei Ponikarovsky started to go at it. Ray won a unanimous decision, getting several good punches in.
It took Mair three minutes, to attempt to get his revenge on McCabe. However, McCabe got a few upper cuts on Mair and opened up a gash near Mair's left eye that required stitches. After that it was like a scene out of Slap Shot. Just 30 seconds after McCabe and Mair went to their respective dressing rooms for repairs, Shayne Corson and Chris Gratton staged their heavyweight fight. Gratton, who can be one of the most dangerous fighters in the league when he's incensed, won close decision over Corson. Corson, even told the linesmen to back away when they came to break up the fight.
Just like Slap Shot, right after the next faceoff, Toronto's Wade Belak and Boulton wailed on each other's face, and the linesmen let them get it out of their systems, finally untangling the two brawlers when they collapsed to the ice.
Four fights in less than 4 minutes. The fans in attendance certainly got their money's worth in just that short time span. From then on, it was like icing on the cake.
The Sabres showed a lot of spunk in this game, especially during the fight-filled first period. The Leafs had just been involved in a similar fracas in Ottawa Tuesday night when both Tie Domi and Darcy Tucker received multiple game suspensions for thuggery. Sabres coach Lindy Ruff was not going to allow his team to be pushed around, so he put both Boulton and Ray into the lineup together for the first time since December 20. So right from the get-go, the Sabres were prepared for anything the Leafs could throw at them.
"I don't think there was anything dirty about any of it," defended Ruff. "There were no vicious sticks or anything. It was good, old-fashioned hockey."
With the crowd from both teams getting into it (and there were several fights in the stands on this night), it was like when the two teams clashed in the Eastern Conference Finals back in 1999.
"The emotion in the building, it's like two home teams here sometimes," Ruff said. "But the place is buzzing right off the bat. There's always been something going on."
"They got a pretty feisty all-around team even with the two guys they had out," admitted Ray. "They still got a physical, tough team. The nice thing is our guys stood up to it and, in a lot of places, initiated it."
Sabres goalie, Marty Biron, who had a great night making 31 saves, had one spectacular glove save with just under a minute left in the game. Gary Roberts shot one for the far corner and Biron snared it with his catching glove to the delight of the Sabres fans.
"As the game started going on and the guys started scrapping and fighting, you could feel the crowd getting into it," described Biron about the fighting atmosphere. "The building was rocking."
Corson got the Leafs on the board first when his shot got past Biron 1:46 of the second stanza. However, a little over 2 minutes later, Miroslav Satan got his 24th to tie it up. Taylor Pyatt put the Sabres into the lead later into the period and the Sabres never gave up the lead from that point on.
Curtis Brown notched one 4:36 into the final period and it looked like the Sabres would breeze past the Leafs. However, with the Leafs playing with an extra attacker late in the game, Robert Svehla got the Leafs to within one goal. Brown got an empty-netter near game's end and the Sabres had themselves a scrappy victory.
What does it take for the Sabres to play this brand of hockey game in and game out? That has been one of the biggest questions during Ruff's coaching career in Buffalo. His teams just don't display the kind of drive they do against the better teams. This season and in years past, the Sabres have had problems getting up for game against the weaker teams. But they can defeat teams like the Flyers, Stars, Leafs and Senators. That is one of the characteristics of Ruff's teams that will probably haunt him for the rest of his coaching years. Sabres fans will always equate Ruff's teams as ones that lacked character and grit like the kind that Ted Nolan's teams displayed each and every game.
A perfect example of the lack of intensity and character of Ruff's current team are the two games they lost to the Islanders and Capitals by identical 2-1 scores before the Toronto game. Against the Isles and former Sabre captain Michael Peca, the Sabres just could not get enough momentum going to come away with the victory.
Garth Snow put an igloo in front of the Isles net and only allowed Satan to penetrate his great ice barrier. Snow had 36 saves and frustrated the Sabres shooters at every level. The Isles were in front 1-0 with the game winding down when Satan fired a shot from the right circle that got over Snow's shoulder with just under 5 minutes left in the game.
Against the Capitals in HSBC Arena Tuesday night, the Sabres came up against another hot goalie in Olaf Kolzig. The Sabres outshot the Capitals by a wide margin, 36-23, really put the pressure on Kolzig in the final period, blistering him with 15 shots.
The only goal to get past Kolzig came from the stick of Ales Kotalik, who one-timed a Satan pass into the netting behind Kolzig to tie the game at 1 apiece.
"It was a nice play with Miro," described Kotalik. "It was just a give-and-go with him. I tried to find my spot in front of the net, and I was open for just one second. But he hit me right at that moment."
Biron had a game in which both goals that got past him were very stoppable. With just half a minute left in the first period, Biron allowed a shot by Jeff Halpern to go five-hole. Then late in the second stanza, it was Halpern again making Biron look bad when a long shot from the right faceoff circle also made it five-hole.
"There's no reason for those two goals to go in," admitted Biron in disgust. "It's one of those games where they shouldn't even be in there. The two goals they got shouldn't have gone in in the first place. There's no X's and O's about it. There's no video you can look at about it. They just shouldn't have gone in. I should have stayed a lot tighter, and we should have walked away with (the win) if that had been the case."
Ruff wasn't going to defend his goalie.
"There wasn't a lot of saves he had to make," Ruff fumed. "Both goals are definitely bad goals."
Even the Caps felt the Sabres played a better game.
"Buffalo deserved to win the hockey game," admitted Caps coach Bruce Cassidy. "It's too bad for them and fortunate for us. Maybe that has been the way their year has gone, but we'll get out of here and take the two points."
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The Buffalo Sabres may be on the bottom of the league, but they have proven they can beat the best of them. Last Friday, it was the Dallas Stars that felt the wrath of the Sabres heat. Thursday night, the Toronto Maple Leafs were in town and not only got the Sabres wrath, but received quite a few fists for good measure.
Chris Gratton dukes it up with the Leafs Shayne Corson during Thursday's slugfest contest which Buffalo won 4-2.
[AP Photo/David Duprey]
Ray, who may not be the best skater on the team, still proved his worth with his fists.
Sabres' Alexei Zhitnik is able to block a shot by Leafs' Gary Roberts during first period action as Sabres goalie Martin Biron gets ready for more action.
[AP Photo/David Duprey]
Sabres intensity level
Two 2-1 losses
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