Sabres now in Sudden Death mode
By Rick Anderson
April 8, 2000
It's now sudden death playoff hockey for the Buffalo Sabres. By not hitting the back of the net more than once Friday night against the Pittsburgh Penguins has put the Sabres in the mode where the next goal scored could make or break their 1999-2000 season. Jaromir Jagr showed the Sabres how quickly their fate can change when he beat Dominik Hasek following a breakaway only 13 seconds after the overtime started to beat the Sabres 2-1 and clinch the seventh seed in the Eastern Conference for the Penguins.
Jagr proved in overtime why he's considered the best forward in the game of hockey today, no matter what Pavel Bure says or does on the ice. The NHL's leading scorer had been kept in check by the Peca-Varada-Tsyplakov line all night. On February 16 during overtime in Pittsburgh that resulted in a 1-1 tie, Michael Peca put a check on Jagr by getting his knee into Jagr's left thigh, and that knocked the scoring ace out the Penguins lineup for several weeks. In this game, Peca did give Jagr a mild check, but Varada finished off check by knocking the Pittsburgh star to the ice. Jagr paid Varada, Peca and the entire Sabres team with his dazzling moves in overtime.
After the puck was dropped in overtime, Darius Kasparaitis fed a pass to Jagr and broke in on the right side into the Buffalo zone. Jagr flew past Alexei Zhitnik like he was a human cone and the Buffalo defenseman tried to prevent a goal by flinging his stick at Jagr's skates. Nothing was to deny Jagr as he skated in front of Hasek, put on the breaks forcing his fellow countryman to commit himself by sprawling on the ice and then he did a 180-degree pivot before he flipped a backhand shot into the gaping hole to Hasek's left. The goal was vintage Jagr (his 43rd of the season) and will definitely make his Top Ten highlight videos of the season.
"Obviously, it was a nice goal, the way he pulled Hasek out of the net," Penguins' coach Herb Brooks said. "When you see Yags coming off the wing, with some of his speed, you know he's got something up his sleeve."
"It was a reaction," Jagr explained his move on Hasek. "My body had to react to what he did."
"With the speed Jaromir has, there was no chance to stop him," said Hasek. "He made a very good move and he has a long reach, and that was the reason he scored, I think."
While the Penguins were celebrating the sudden death victory, the Sabres were trying to do damage control and get their minds focused on their last game of the season against the Washington Capitals. After what most consider a very disappointing season for the Sabres, after going to the Stanley Cup Finals last year, the Sabres know that they must beat the Capitals in order to qualify for the playoffs.
"We're going to have to go in there (Washington) with a positive attitude that we're going to come up with a big effort, get a big win and go into the playoffs," Stu Barnes said after the game.
"That's not our focus, what happened tonight," Curtis Brown said. "Our focus has to turn as soon as the buzzer went (off) and they won the hockey game. Our focus goes to Sunday where we know it's a must win to get into the playoffs."
"I think you have to look at it that way," Lindy Ruff said. "We still control our own destiny. We have a game on Sunday that we are guaranteed to be in, and that's the bottom line."
The Sabres had the golden opportunity to almost completely seal their fate as the final playoff team in the East with a win over Pittsburgh. As it was, the Pens had a different fate in mind - clinching the 7th playoff seed in the conference.
"We could have gone easy tonight and played soft," said Pittsburgh goalie Ron Tugnutt, who turned back 30 shots and held the Penguins in the game until Jagr could finish it off. "That just shows you that they're committed to playing well going into the playoffs."
The Sabres have failed miserably the past two games they have played at home on a Friday night. Last week, Buffalo failed to deliver the knockout punch on the Carolina Hurricanes when they lost 3-1 to the Canes. Against Pittsburgh, they could have once again knocked Carolina out of the playoff race with a victory, but came up short again in overtime. Maybe the Sabres should not play on Fridays. It was like Friday the 13th when the Sabres faced the Penguins. First, Doug Gilmour, who has been battling the stomach flu since coming over to Buffalo in a trade with Chicago on March 10th, was scratched right before the opening faceoff because his symptoms worsened and after going through the pre-game skate, Gilmour said he was too weak to play. Then, the Penguins scored early in the first period on a goal that was fluky at best.
With only a minute and a half gone by in the game, Pittsburgh won the draw in the Buffalo zone and the puck was passed back to Michal Rozsival, who shot the puck from the right point. The shot was a line drive that took a nose dive, bounced off the ice, was tipped by Dan Trebil and flew over Dominik Hasek's left shoulder and into the net 1:38 into the first period. That goal took the wind out of the Sabres' sails and probably energized the Penguins in their efforts to beat Buffalo in its own rink.
Tugnutt, who came over to Pittsburgh from Ottawa when the Penguins dealt Tom Barrasso for him at the trading deadline, was the number one star in the game before Jagr stole the banner in overtime. The Sabres outshot Pittsburgh 10-5 in the first period and 11-9 in the second. Tugnutt kept pace with Hasek at the other end of the rink, and both goalies made phenomenal saves during the regulation time.
"It was exciting," Tugnutt said about the goaltender showdown. "We were kind of feeding off each other a little bit."
"I felt good, I thought I was seeing the puck well and I've actually felt that way for the last couple of weeks," Tugnutt continued. "We wanted to make sure we got seventh spot, and we assured it tonight."
Now it all comes down to the last game of the season. Buffalo has not done well against the Capitals since being eliminated in the Eastern Conference Finals two years ago by Washington. They have a difficult time in solving Olaf Kolzig, the Caps star goalie. They also seem to get perplexed over the antics of Capitals' coach Ron Wilson. During the playoff series between the two in ‘98, Wilson uttered uncomplimentary statements towards the Sabres and challenged their manhood. This week, Wilson was a guest on the Jim Rome radio sports talk show and once again said that Peca was a dirty player, citing what he considered a cheap shot on Sergei Gonchar the last time the two teams met in early March. Wilson took matters into his own hands by ordering Steve Konowalchuk to get some retribution on Peca at the end of that game. Konowalchuk proceeded to deliver a blow that separated Peca's shoulder and then used the Buffalo captain's face as a punching bag when Peca told him he could not fight back.
The Sabres will have to concentrate on the task at hand, clinching a playoff berth, before they get swept away with any notion of revenge directed at Konowalchuk or Wilson. It all comes down to the last game of the season. Will the Sabres be up to the task of beating the Capitals in hostile territory, or will they be hitting the golf links next week in sunny Florida? We'll all know the answer sometime after 3 PM Sunday.
The Sabres know that they have their work cut out for them when they travel to Washington for Sunday's "do-or-die" game.
"We're looking at it as another must-win. Basically, if we lose we're looking at it as if we're done," commented Rhett Warrener. "If we don't win that game, we don't have much chance. We have to rely on losses by other teams and I don't see it happening. We've put ourselves in a situation where we have to come out with a huge 60 minutes on Sunday."
"We put ourselves in a situation where we've gone 7-1-1 (actually 7-2-0-1) in our last nine and still haven't guaranteed anything," said Sabres coach Lindy Ruff in his post game conference. "It's tough. But in the same sense, we have a game where we still control destiny in our own hands.
Maybe that's meant to be."
Expounding on the tough schedule handed to the Sabres in the last week, Ruff said, "I don't know if we've had any easy ones. Every place we've gone into has been difficult. This one is going to big for them (the Caps), and it's going to be big for us. Really, it's a Game Seven in a final series for us."
Commenting on the game, Curtis Brown said, "We had some great chances in regulation. Once we had that point, it was a totally different game with four-on-four. There was no question it was a beautiful goal (by Jagr)."
"We're not going to win every game," Brown continued. "We went out and battled and we've got to let that one go. You don't let it drill you into the ground. There's so many good teams in this league, you can go out and work hard and just not get the bounces you need to win and come out short."
"We knew it might come down to the last game of the year,. A win (against Pittsburgh) would have been the best, but you know what, we'll keep our chins up, battle hard Sunday and win and we're in the playoffs."
"I think rather than sitting at home, waiting for people to lose games, which would probably make tomorrow night easier to sleep, destiny's obviously in our own hands and it's always better to have that than to hope somebody loses," Peca said.
Ruff tried to explain the breakdown in the Sabres's system of keeping Jagr in check during overtime.
"I think there was a little miscommunication between Michael (Peca) and ‘Z' (Zhitnik)," Ruff analyzed. "Michael kind of swung with him in the neutral zone, so Z was going to start stepping up, and Michael released him. I think you saw the results."
"We knew we had to do a good job on him (Jagr)," asserted Ruff. "They were double shifting him. He basically beat Toronto (Wednesday) in their building and he beat us tonight in overtime."
The Penguins have been one of the best teams in the NHL as of late and Pens coach Herb Brooks took note of that after the game.
"We've established ourselves as one of the hottest teams in the National Hockey League," Brooks said. "To come in here and get a couple points against a team that's trying to make the playoffs, that's just a good effort by us."
"We've won in some pretty hard places," Matthew Barnaby said. "Lately, we've been going on all cylinders, getting some big wins for ourselves."
"We had a meeting, we're in the playoffs, so let's try to play the best hockey we can play," said Jagr. "All game long, nothing went good for me. I'm glad something went good for me,. Jan made a great play and I caught Zhitnik when he was standing, and I had the speed. I was lucky he was standing and I was skating."
What happens if the Montreal Canadiens and the Sabres are tied after the regular season ends on Sunday? The NHL has a series of tie-breakers that has even the most knowledgeable hockey expert scratching his head. If the two are tied in points, which is a good possibility, then the league goes to head-to-head series between Buffalo and Montreal, and if they are tied there, then it goes to goal differentials between the two clubs. Now what happens if they are tied after that?
The NHL announced yesterday that there will be a playoff game between Buffalo and Montreal if all those tie breakers do not determine who advances into the playoffs. A coin toss will determine who would host the 1-game "pre-playoff" playoff game.
After Friday's game, Buffalo leads in the point differential race. The Sabres have a +9 goal differential to Montreal's +4. If that difference is made up when the Sabres play the Caps Sunday, then a first-time ever pre-playoff game will be held to see who goes into the post season and who watches on the sidelines.
The Carolina Hurricanes, because the Sabres could not finish off the Penguins, are still alive and kicking in the playoff race. However, a win by either the Canadiens or Buffalo, or a tie by the Sabres on Sunday, would eliminate the Hurricanes.
Lightning struck with such speed and force that it left the sellout crowd of 18,690 in HSBC Arena in a total state of shock and wondering about the fate of their Sabres. At least the Buffalo players seemed to be more focused on what lies ahead of them than feeling devastated over the sudden loss.
Jaromir Jagr, who scored the winning goal in overtime against the Sabres, gets a shot off on Dominik Hasek in the first period that the "Dominator" stopped.
[AP Photo/Don Heupel]
Finally, mid way through the second period, the Sabres found the back of the net. Vladimir Tsyplakov made a pass to Michael Peca at the top of the slot and Tugnutt stopped Peca's initial wrist shot. But Vaclav Varada, who's become a scoring machine as of late, notched his 10th of the season when he stuffed home the rebound while charging into the Penguins' goalie. The goal came at the 10:30 mark of the period and revived the Sabres' drive to win the game and secure a spot in the playoffs. However, Tugnutt would not have anything to do with letting the Sabres get into the post season at his expense. He shut down the Sabres scoring machine the rest of the way.
The two players involved in a trade last year, Matthew Barnaby and Stu Barnes, confront each other in Pittsburgh's 2-1 OT win over Buffalo Friday night. Here Barnaby cross-checks Stu Barnes from behind as Sabres LW Geoff Sanderson attempts to get the puck.
[AP Photo/Don Heupel]
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