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The rust really showed tonight in the Sabres 4-2 loss to the Boston Bruins. The Sabres had ten days off since their last game. They took another night off tonight against the Boston Bruins. Their offense was so inept it would put an insomniac to sleep! The Sabres actually came out of the shoot storming, but Byron Dafoe stonewalled them. After a couple chances, Dafoe had an easy time of it until the third period when the Sabres pulled out all stops. But in the last few seconds of the game, Boston scored an empty netter and took a 1-0 lead in the series. In the first two periods the Sabres just couldn't get anything untracked and their passing was horrendous.

Jason Allison got the Bruins on the board with a power play goal in the with six minutes remaining in the first period . Allison got in on Richard Smehlik who stood frozen as Allison breezed past him and flipped the puck off Hasek shoulder and into the net. In the second period, the Sabres actually outshot the Bruins, but the Bruins scored on one of its first three shots to take a 2-0 lead. Dmitri Khristich scored with 4:39 remaining in the second period, assisted by Allison who was having a great night. Buffalo countered with a power play goal by Alexei Zhitnik, who blasted one from the point to pull the Sabres back within one. However, the Bruins came right back and scored another power play goal with only 13 seconds remaining in the second to take another two goal lead (scoring with only 13 seconds remaining sounds awfully familiar). Dominik Hasek was obviously rattled in this one. The Bruins only had four shots on goal in the second period and scored on half of them. Hasek was human! In fact, he was downright beatable! And the Bruins were scoring on almost every shot they took.

But in the third period, Jason Woolley scored an unassisted goal to put the Sabres within one goal again. At last the Sabres appeared as if they had gotten their legs again as they had several opportunities to tie the game. But they just couldn't get the equalizer against Dafoe. The Sabres actually outshot the Bruins in this game, so that show you that Hasek was probably rusty for lack of work. He only faced 20 shots tonight and allowed 3 goals, quite unlike his usual dominating statistics. Game 2 is stated for Sunday afternoon, Mother's Day!