BURE BURIES SABRES IN 4-2 LOSS
By Rick Anderson
Saturday, December 18, 1999

Back in the early 1960's, Soviet Prime Minister Nikita Khrushchev promised America, "We will bury you." Little did anyone know that promise would come true and be brought about by a skilled Russian hockey player known as Pavel Bure. Bure hasn't buried America, but he sure is doing a good job of it in the National Hockey League. Last night, Bure put on a one-man Russian exhibition against the Buffalo Sabres in the Florida Panthers' 4-2 victory in Marine Midland Arena.

Former Sabre Mike Wilson checks Brian Holzinger as they battle out in front of Panthers' goalie Shtalenkov

The original "Russian Rocket" was clicking on all cylinders as he penetrated the Sabres defense by scoring a hat trick and had a hand in all the Florida goals. The Sabres' version of "The Rocket" had a first hand look at his fellow Russian cosmonaut. Maxim Afinogenov staged a little fireworks display himself with some dazzling moves and getting an important assist in the Sabres first goal by Stu Barnes. But after seeing Bure almost single handedly beat the Sabres with his great scoring touch, Maxim knows he has a long ways to go to reach Bure's high orbit. Hopefully Maxim was taking a lot of mental notes.

Talking about his Russian upstart, Bure said, "Obviously he's a very good player. For me, it is really hard to say how good he's going to be, because I just saw him twice and I was playing myself. But if you look at his stats, he's scored 8 or 9 goals, it's really good."

Bure got his 13th NHL hat trick at the expense of the Sabres and has scored 11 goals in his last 9 games. He only played only 11 games in 1998-99 because a knee injury sidelined him, and has missed eight this season. Even so, Bure still is tied with Ray Whitney with 27 points for top point-getter for the Panthers. He also leads the team with 18 goals.

"We have to be angry at ourselves with the chances we game him," said Stu Barnes, who scored one of Buffalo's two goals. "We talked about it before the game. One the other hand, you have to give him credit. He's just a great player."

"We were trying to play Peca most of the time against him," Sabres coach Lindy Ruff said. "Peca was in getting his skates done (on the third Florida goal), his skate was broken. So we went with the Holzinger line. If you make a mistake at the offensive line or at our line with him on the ice, you're going to pay for it. He gets a step on you and he's very dangerous. We knew he was their best player, we just didn't do a good job."

Bure opened the scoring in the first period while Richard Smehlik was in the penalty box. Ray Whitney made a perfect pass over to a charging Bure, who got in alone and one-timed it over Martin Biron's catching glove. The goal came at the 7:42 mark.

"The first goal, we win a faceoff, Ward fans on trying to get it out, then we don't win the battle and we gave them an opportunity there," Ruff said. "We could have gotten the puck down the ice and ended that one. It ended up we've got a guy without a stick and they scored on that one."

Stu Barnes gets out in front and scores Sabres first goal

Afinogenov, got the Sabres back into the game when he rushed down the right side, taking 4 Panthers with him. He made a great pass over to Holzinger near the blue line and ‘Zinger saw Stu Barnes skating in alone on Panther goalie Mikhail Shtalenkov. Barnes blasted the puck into the open side of the net to tie the game up with 2:05 remaining in the period.

Bure's efforts helped Florida regain the lead when he sent a laser pass over to Whitney and his shot deflected off Jason Woolley and fluttered into the air and over Biron's glove into the net at 7:49 of the second period. It was Whitney's 12the goal of the season.

"Pavel passed it across to Whitney and he took a one-timer shot," said Biron. "At that same time Jason Woolley completed his back-checking. He was coming down to help us down low and he had his back to the play as he was getting the guy right next to the post. It hit him in the back of the leg and it kind of flopped up in the air. It was kind of a scrambled play. Bounces like that are going to happen. You've just got to fight through them."

A huge mistake by Brian Holzinger resulted in Bure's second of the night with 5:45 gone the third period. Holzinger got the puck near his blue line, and instead of rushing up the ice with it or passing, he decided to make a drop pass to a phantom Sabre. Bure grabbed the puck and was in on Biron faster than you can say "Pavel." Cory Sarich was the only one between the Russian Rocket and Biron and Bure blew past him and shot the puck in the five hole, between Biron's pads to put the game away for the Panthers.

"When you hand the puck to one of the best breakaway players in the world, he's going to kill you," said Holzinger.

"I don't remember how it happened," Bure described the play. "The puck was just loose on the blue line. I turned around and saw everyone going toward me, so it wasn't really hard. I just had to put the puck in front of me and go for the breakaway."

"He came down and I tried to really figure out what he was going to do," Biron said. "He snapped that puck really quick and it was a hard shot too. I got a piece of it, but he shot it hard so he knew that if I were to get a piece of it was maybe going to dribble in, and that's what it did."

"We made some big mistakes," Ruff said. "Obviously he (Bure) capitalized on them. It was the Holzinger drop pass and then Zhitnik ran into Barnes, that pretty well sums up that goal."

The Sabres came back with 6:49 left and made a game of it when Miroslav Satan scored his 14th of the season. Geoff Sanderson dug the puck out of the corner and passed it right in front to Satan, who one-timed it past Shtalenkov.

Bure scored an empty net goal when the Sabres pulled Biron in favor of an extra attacker late in the game. Bure shot it in on net as he got over the red line and was tripped up by Afinogenov. The Sabres chased after it but couldn't get it out as Mellanby battled for it and set it in front of the net. Bure stormed in and tapped the puck gently into the open net.

"That was the hardest goal I've ever scored." joked a laughing Bure. "Mellanby should get credit for that goal."

"It's a team effort," Bure continued. "That last goal, Mellanby had to go down and get a puck and put it in front of the net. It's always nice to see how we're working as a team."

Being modest, Bure said about his great performance, "Well, sometimes the puck just goes in. It was just a big bonus for me to score those goals."

Talking about the 40 the Panthers have in the standings, Bure said, "As many points as we have, I think we deserve all of them because we're playing really well as a team. If you would take our front line, Peter Worrell and Paul Laus, those guys were great for us. Just dump the puck in and just go and crash everyone."

"He's gone through a tremendous amount of adversity," Florida coach Terry Murray said about his superstar. "To have another reconstruction and to expect a lot early was really unfair for us as an organization, and maybe we were all hoping that tonight was the night to break out."

"I wouldn't separate myself from the team," Bure said. "It was a team effort. Take the last goal, all I had to do was push the puck across the goal line."

The Sabres outshot the Panthers, 31-23, but didn't have many good opportunities.

"Tonight we had our opportunities," Biron said. "Shtalenkov made the big saves at the end when he had to and that's what killed us. That's been the case a little bit lately, but there's some games when we've scored (a lot of) goals."

Buffalo's inept powerplay continues to remain a non-factor in it's offensive arsenal. Having just one goal in their last 43 man advantages, something has to change quickly if the Sabres want to turn their ship around and head in the right direction. During three power plays last night, the Sabres only managed to get two shots on goal. That's TWO shots on three power plays!

"How many times have we talked about this?" said Satan. "I have nothing to say about it anymore." The Sabres were booed after exhibiting a lack of shots and scoring during their power plays. "Obviously, the fans feel the same way we do."

The Sabres are now dead last in the entire league for power play goals. Buffalo has failed to score with a man advantage on its last 24 attempts.

"There are a couple of things that are really dragging the momentum. One is our powerplay. It's discouraging. But you've got a lot of guys squeezing the stick pretty hard. You've got to work your way through it. Our play selection hasn't been good, and that comes with pressing. There are too many guys trying too hard."

"They did a good job of forcing, but it's getting to the point where it doesn't really matter what the other teams do,"said Woolley. "We have to find a way to get this going. I don't care if we're 0 for 80 and winning every game. But now we're costing ourselves some points, and it's really frustrating. Everyone is disappointed in how this thing is going."

"I want to make things happen," Woolley continued. Zhitnik wants to make things happen. We want to get out of this funk. We're really pressing. I'll tell you what - when we get that first goal, things are going to be a hell of a lot easier. We're going to be able to settle down."

The Sabres looked to be within reach of going over the .500 mark for the first time this season if they were successful against Florida and the Islanders this weekend. Now, they are back to square one and two games below the even mark.

"You can use whatever adjective you want, it's frustrating," Ruff said about the team not being able go past the .500 mark. "You're not scoring on your opportunities. You really get down on some of the mistakes you make. But when you're scoring one or two goals, it's almost like life and death. We made some big mistakes and he (Bure) took advantage of them. Those are mistakes, the same type of big mistakes we made in the game in Florida. We played well for long periods and make a big mistake and it goes in the net. Bottom line is we didn't play good enough to win."

Shtalenkov, replacing Trevor Kidd who was injured during a team skills competition, was sharp enough to keep the Sabres' shooters at bay.

"He had a couple of flurries," said Ruff. "He made a great save on Barnes with about 2 minutes left, could've tied the game up. But overall, he probably had 7 or 8 saves he had to make. At the end of the night, if you're talking about big saves the goaltenders had to make it probably was about equal. They didn't make a big mistake that allowed the two-on-ones or the breakaways that we made."

Talking about getting right back into the action with a game on Long Island tonight, Ruff said, "We've played pretty good on the road. Obviously, we get a chance to rebound. I think this would be a tough game to sit around and try to digest. We had an opportunity to finish off a homestand on a decent note, and it's a disappointing game to lose."

"We have to set our minds straight that we're not going to lose two in a row," said Biron. "you're going to lose some games during the season, but you have to really try to avoid losing 2 or 3 in a row. And that's really what we are going to try to do so that we can go back on a winning streak."

"When we play against the Islanders, we know we have to win," Woolley agreed. "We're supposed to win. Those games are hard. This one should have been easy. We were playing at home and we've been playing well lately."

Michael Peca, who looked as if he were about to get out of his funk, went right back into his shell against the Panthers. He had been suffering from the flu bug, and that may have been the reason for the lack of intensity he displayed on the ice last night. He typifies the entire Sabres team this season. One game he comes out full of fire and hits everything on the ice, the next game he is nowhere to be found. The Sabres have displayed the form that got them to the Stanley Cup finals when they beat teams like Dallas, Boston and Philadelphia. But right after playing outstanding games, they seem to rest on their laurels and pack it in for the next few contests.

Dwayne Roloson will be between the pipes tonight as the Sabres play the New York Islanders and attempt once again to get back on track.

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