The Sabres goalie quagmire
By Rick Anderson
November 8, 2003

Alexei Zhitnik uses his new stick to poke check the puck away from Canadiens right winger Michael Ryder.

[Photo by AP Photo/Don Heupel]

The Sabres have been suffering from inconsistent goaltending ever since Dominik Hasek departed for fertile lands west of Buffalo. Matin Biron was penciled in as the "heir apparent" but has never lived up to expectations. He has had flashes of greatness, but never has been consistent to the degree where the Sabres can depend on him.

Mika Noronen, who has also suffered hot and cold streaks, was hot Friday against the Montreal Canadiens when he allowed only one goal on 37 shots in the Sabres 2-1 victory at HSBC Arena. Even Ryan Miller, who is now toiling in Rochester, has been extremely capricious. He started in the Sabres opener and played strong. But like last season, he came apart in the third period in his second game, giving Sabres coach Lindy Ruff reason to send him back down to Rochester for more work.

Now with both Noronen and Biron having horrible games, Ruff may be forced to call up Miller to help stabilize the goaltending situation. Miller is 4-2-1 since being sent down to Rochester. He was 0-2 with a 4.07 goals against in his two games in Buffalo.

Last Saturday in Ottawa, Biron looked like he may have finally come out of his shell and matured into the goalie the Sabres have wanted him to be. He shutdown the mighty Ottawa Senators in a 1-1 deadlock and appeared as if he was finally ready to claim the Number 1 goalie position left him by Hasek. Unfortunately for both Biron and the Sabres, Biron's roller coaster ride with disparity continued as he played possibly his worst NHL game ever Wednesday against Atlanta.

With the Sabres in the lead 3-1, Biron suddenly was unable to make even average saves as he allowed 6 straight goals, giving the Thrashers a 7-4 victory. Ruff should have pulled Biron much earlier, but wanted Martin to pull himself out of his funk, which he did not.

"After the second (stanza) I toyed with the idea of putting Mika in, but I thought "(Marty) has been going so good. Let's let him battle through it,' " ," mentioned Ruff. "I don't know what it is with Marty against this team. Marty's stats against this team are awful. So I guess you could ask "Then why'd you play him?' But I thought he was going so good that maybe that's behind him, but it bit us again."

With the mess in goal, Ruff and Sabres GM Darcy Regier must decide who they want as their starter and maybe trade one of the three. It won't be an easy decision.

Noronen to the rescue

Enter Mika Noronen against the Canadiens. He was superb against the Habs, kicking, catching and blocking 36 out of 37 shots. If not for Noronen, the Sabres would have been blown away in their own building for the second consecutive game.

"It was a great performance by Mika in the first period," lauded Ruff about his second stringer. "He made some good saves, he was very solid. It's comforting to get goaltending like that on a bounce-back performance. I also thought he was our best defenseman playing the puck. He did a tremendous job."

Noronen kept the Habs at bay for most of the game until former Sabres, Donald Audette, finally cracked the goose egg and got the Canadiens on the board in the third period.

"It's easier when you've got lots of shots," conceded Noronen. "You don't have to think about anything else. You just have to stand out there and try to block the net and make the save."

With Noronen playing so well at home against Montreal, the obvious question is if he gets the start in the game in Montreal Saturday night? Ruff would not comment on it at his post game press conference, only saying it would be a game-time decision.

Briere & Kotalik get tallies

It was Daniel Briere and Ales Kotalik who scored all the goals the Sabres needed to get two points on the Canadiens. Briere scored a powerplay goal in the second stanza. Briere followed up on the play, getting the puck from Chris Drury behind the net and came in front, jamming the puck past Habs goalie Jose Theodore. The goal came at the 4:37 mark.

"I wasn't sure whether the puck went in," admitted Briere. "I was just trying to stuff it in there. I was surprised when the light went on."

Kotalik got the Sabres up 2-0 with over 11 minutes gone by in the second. Curtis Brown helped sweep the puck to Ales and the Sabres forward swatted it past Theodore.

In the third, Audette came in with the puck slithering through the crease and Noronen facing the opposite direction. Before Noronen could flip over to try to cover the puck, Audette already had the puck in the net to spoil Mika's shutout bid with just 6:26 remaining in the game.

Audette, who had a big growth removed from his neck (around his Adam's apple) Wednesday, played with a band-aid on his neck Friday. That didn't seem to bother the pesky winger. His goal could have helped spark a Montreal comeback.

"It's a typical goal when you're in a slump that you try to create," described Audette. "Good things happen when you go to the net."

Then he turned to the more serious matter of the growth that had been surgically removed two days earlier.

"It was getting bigger and bigger every day," said Audette. "The last two months it just got bigger. I started to feel it about two, three months ago. It was not the size of a golf ball, but it was pretty big. It was time to get it out. There was probably a lot of infection in there, and if it pops inside of you it could be dangerous."

Biron solid against the Sens

While Biron did have one of his worst games ever against the Thrashers, last Saturday, he wasn't anything but spectacular. Biron was just the opposite of the Atlanta mauling, stopping 34 shots and playing one of his better games in recent memory in the Sabres 1-1 tie in Ottawa.

Biron was quick to give credit to the team in front of him.

"A lot of guys had blocks tonight," lauded Biron. "I knew the guys were in the game, that they were focused and playing with some desperation. I had to match their desperation. You want to win every game, but coming into a place like Ottawa and a big conference game, to come up with a point, we gotta take it."

James Patrick scored the Sabres lone goal and Daniel Alfredsson powerplay tally spoiled Biron's shutout bid.

"We can't say we're satisfied with the tie, but to play the way we did on the road will lead to a lot more points than we've gotten in the past," said Patrick. "We held the highest scoring team in the NHL to one goal. It's a huge boost of confidence for us."

The Sabres were able to score 4 goals Wednesday against Atlanta, but it wasn't enough as Biron suddenly came unglued to the Thrashers, allowing pucks in that even midget players would have stopped.

With the Sabres up 3-1 on goals by Maxim Afinogenov, J.P. Dumont and Curtis Brown. But then Biron's nightmare started and he allowed 6 straight goals and Ruff couldn't sleep that night as he knew that he should have pulled Biron much earlier.

Biron realized that he just had one of those nights.

"I feel like I blew it, and that's it," admitted Biron, who had only 14 saves. "No more, no less. I blew it, and now I'll have to shake it off and come back even stronger."

Drury came to Biron's defense.

"Certainly everything should not be put on Marty's back," Drury said. "He got us a point in Ottawa when we weren't that sharp the whole game. When there's a night when someone's not sharp, everyone else needs to pick it up for him. We certainly didn't do that."

Sabres Talk

Afer Thrashers game, Ruff contemplated on what went wrong.

"We didn't make a lot of mistakes, but when we did make them every one found the back of the net," alluded Ruff. "For 35 minutes we did everything we wanted to do, but when goals go in like that, it deflates you. This is a league where you're not going to win with goaltending like that. Marty understands that."

It was a lot different after Noronen shutdown the Canadiens for most of the game.

Added Sabres center Adam Mair: "It's always good when you get outshot and have the goaltender steal you two points."

"I just try to go out there and perform well when I get the chance," replied Noronen to reporters questions. "I got some good bounces and they hit a couple of posts. When you play well you need some luck, too."

Briere stated how important it is to have solid goaltending.

"Mika's goaltending gave us a chance to stay in the game," Briere declared. "Montreal was playing better than we were. They had more jump and better support all over the ice."

The Sabres hope to steal another two points out of Montreal Saturday night.

"A home-and-home series against a divisional rival is important," said Jay McKee. "We wanted to win this game because you don't want to go into their building down a game."

Saku Koivu, who missed 13 games because of a knee injury, made the start against the Sabres. He was on the ice for almost 20 minutes.

"It felt better than I expected," explained Koivu. "It just seems we're not getting the bounces and the puck's not going in for us."

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