Sabres goaltending dominating again
By Rick Anderson
January 10, 2004

The Sabres Chris Drury raises his stick in celebration after Rory Fitzpatrick scored a late goal to give the Sabres a 3-2 win over the Ottawa Senators.

[AP Photo/David Duprey]

It took three years, but the Buffalo Sabres appear to have a dominating force in goal again. The original Dominator, Dominik Hasek, vacated his throne in the cease 3 seasons ago and the void he left in his wake has not been adequately filled until recently.

The Sabres are back to dominating in goal the last few weeks and it was great goaltending that sparked a Buffalo 3-2 win over the red-hot Ottawa Senators Friday night in Buffalo's HSBC Arena.

The "Heir Apparent" to the Dominator's kingdom, Martin Biron, has mostly bee a huge disappointment and never has lived up to the lofty expectations projected on him....until the start of this New Year.

The same can be said about perennial backup Mika Noronen, who recently claimed the goalie throne with stellar play in December, only to fall prey to the Sabres goalie plight: the infamous groin injury.

With neither of the 3 Sabres goalies (Ryan Miller has been erratic as the third string) seemingly wanting to claim the top goalie seed for most of the season thus far, Noronen suddenly catapulted to the forefront, only to succumb to the groin syndrome.

Biron, who has been playing exceptional since the start of the New Year when he took over for the injured Noronen, has rivaled the best of the Dominator.

Friday night, the Senators were in town fresh from demolishing the Toronto Maple Leafs 7-1 the night before. Surely this was going to be a test of Biron's mettle as an NHL goalie. For 54 minutes, Biron had the Sens believing the was the resurrected Dominator, making sensational save after sensational save and apparently heading for his first shutout of the season. The Sabres seemed to be rolling to a relatively easy 2-0 victory as they were preventing most Senators penetrations into their zone with a tight trapping system.

Suddenly, like what has happened to all three Sabres goalies way too many times this season, the roof fell in. in a matter of 25 seconds, the Senator offensive machine woke up from a mid-winter's and zapped two pucks past the suddenly bewildered Biron.

Martin Havlat's power play tally at 14:04 mark of the final period broke Biron's shutout bid. Todd White got a shot on Biron's stick side that the Sabres goalie should have stopped. Just like what had happened in the last meeting between these two teams, the Senators had wiped out a 2-goal lead at the end of a period in a matter of seconds.

The Senators found their scoring touch just in the nick of time. First, Martin Havlat scored on the power play at 14:04 to break goalie Martin Biron's bid for a shutout and then Todd White tied it up only 25 seconds later.

Biron and the other two goalies have imploded much too frequently this year and the sellout crowd in HSBC Arena, which included a large segment of Senators fans, were prepared to see the Senators stage a miracle last minute comeback victory.

Then as suddenly as the Sens had jolted the Sabres by tying it up, Buffalo struck back with the game-winner, the third powerplay goal of the night by the Sabres.

The Sabres, who had scored powerplay goals by J.P. Dumont and Daniel Briere, got a break when Jason Spezza got a cross-checking at 17:13. With 2:47 remaining in the contest, Rory Fitzpatrick got a shot through a maze of players from the right point and it slipped past an obviously screened Patrick Lalime. That turned out to be the winner as the Sabres held on from there to beat the Sens for the first time this year after two ties.

"Even when Ottawa did take the momentum we were able to stay on our game and not give up," insisted Fitzpatrick. "When things aren't going your way like they were on that streak we were on, there's a tendency for heads to go down on the bench. But we've been playing well of late, and that helps your confidence. We couldn't let those two late goals be the back-breaker."

Biron spectacular against Flyers

Biron was even better against the Flyers Wednesday when the Sabres hosted Philadelphia. Biron made 44 saves as the Sabres played to a 1-1 tie with the Flyers. The one goal he did allow he wishes he could have back as John LeClair stormed around the net and completed his wrap around by stuffing it past Biron's pad before he could get it firmly planted against the goal post. However, just a minute 9 seconds later, Alexei Zhitnik scored from the point to tie the game.

Clearly the star of that game was Biron.

"It was tough when I wasn't getting the rhythm," noted Biron after the Flyers tie. "Now I feel like I got some good momentum going. I feel like I have a good game focus. I just want to keep it going." "You gotta be thrilled with Marty Biron, he was unreal," praised Chris Drury.

Sabres coach Lindy Ruff has been equally thrilled with the improved play of Biron. After he made 44 saves against the Flyers, Ruff said, "Marty's run a pretty good stretch of games together for us, which is what we needed. He's got himself a little groove. I hope both of them play great. When Mika gets back and if we can utilize him and Marty's still going good, we'll keep riding Marty. Right now he's played probably his best hockey of the year for us."

Sabres Talk

Ruff was happy that the Sabres finally got a win this week. Saturday, they tied the Maple Leafs 3-3 and lost to the Canadiens 3-1 on Monday.

"It was really a good feeling tonight that we were going to win the game, but we made it interesting," said Ruff after the Senators game. "The only way I thought they were going to get in it was if they got a couple calls, and they got the late call to get them on the board."

"You never want to put your team behind with a penalty, but three is pretty extensive," mentioned Fitzpatrick. "But it was good to get that goal."

Spezza was upset when he was sent to the penalty box late in the game and it resulted in the Sabres winning goal.

"You'd think at that point of the game you'd be able to get away with a little more," suggested Spezza. "Briere kind of went down pretty easily and that's tough. I guess I know now you can't get away with that stuff.

"We came back hard and we did a good job. Then, I get that penalty at the end. I have to learn my lesson from that. You can't do that in that situation."

Senators coach Jacques Martin was livid after the game.

"You can't let any team score three power-play goals," Martin said.

"You look at the whole game and I don't think we deserved to win," Sens defenseman Chris Phillips said. "We worked hard to get back in the third period and we scored those late goals, but you've got to get the job done for 60 minutes.

"It's too bad because (Patrick Lalime) made some big stops for us and we couldn't give him any support. The streak meant a lot to us. But to keep it going we had to work harder and we didn't."

"Both goalies made some great saves," White said. "Tonight, the last team with the break ended up winning it."

Both Briere and Dumont scored up high on Lalime.

"Almost every goal I've scored on Lalime I've gone top shelf," admitted Dumont. "That's my sweet spot, especially when I've got time to shoot."

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