PRE-Y2K DISASTER STRIKES BUFFALO!
By Rick Anderson
Thursday, Wednesday, December 28, 1999

It was musical goalies for the Buffalo Sabres Tuesday night. The music was sweet for the Detroit Red Wings, but everything was out of tune for the two Sabres' goalies. Detroit blasted the Sabres into Lake Erie was a barrage of goals in the second period and finally ended Buffalo's misery with a 7-2 victory.

In a matter of 1 minute and 55 seconds, the Red Wings scored 4 goals on Buffalo, taking a 5-0 lead. Dwayne Roloson and Martin Biron skated back and forth from the bench so often they must have thought they were on line changes. Before the Red Wings were through pulverizing the Sabres in the period, they had scored 6 goals. Six goals in one period! The second period goes down as the Sabres' second worst in franchise history. In 1970, the Montreal Canadians scored 7 goals in one period.

Larry Murphy gains possession of the puck after taking out Erik Rasmussen

Doug Brown opened the scoring very early in the first period when he got a shot past Roloson with only 1:13 gone in the period. After that, the Sabres settled down and played a fairly even game with the Wings as both teams ended with 6 shots on goal.

But the roof caved in on the Sabres and their befuddled goalies in the second stanza. The goals started going in so fast that the fans must have thought they were watching a pregame warmup with the goaltenders not making too much effort in blocking the shots. Igor Larionov got the Wings rolling by scoring his 7th of the season at the 2:27 mark. Just 50 seconds later, Nicklas Lidstrom had his eighth goal of the year and that was enough for Ruff. In came Biron.

Forty-two seconds after Biron took over in the nets, Aaron Ward put the puck past Biron and the Wings suddenly led 4-0. Twenty-three seconds later, Detroit was up 5-0 when Pat Verbeek got the rubber past the Sabres rookie goaltender.

One minute 55 second = 4 goals! Lindy was seen looking up into the press box after that goal. Could it be he was contemplating putting a call in for Dominik Hasek?

There was a brief period when the Red Wings weren't scoring against the Sabres. Five minutes and 36 seconds passed before the Wings got on the scoreboard again. This time it was Tomas Holmstrom at the 9:58 mark. Detroit 6 Buffalo 0!

"There were a couple of goals I'm sure they'd like back," Ruff said. "I made the switch (in goalies) to change momentum but didn't matter."

Time for Ruff to make his goalie line shift again. In came Roloson. All it took was one minute and 5 seconds for the Wings to get another goal, their seventh of the night when Verbeek got his second of the period.

"All of a sudden, this tornado hit," said Sabres captain Michael Peca. "That was a tough thing to handle. I remember losing 7-1 or 7-2, but nothing that hit us as fast as that."

"I felt bad for their goalies," Detroit goalie Ken Wregget said. "I've been on that side."

The Sabres were finally able to escape the period without any further damage. This may seem hard to believe, but the Sabres actually outshot Detroit 15-11 in the second period.

The Sabres were awarded a penalty shot in the after 4 ½ minutes into third period and Ruff elected to have his 40 goal scorer from last year take the shot. Miroslav Satan skated in on Wings goalie Ken Wregget but his shot hit the post. When things go wrong .......

Satan was finally able to crack the invisible shield behind Wregget at the 11:23 mark of the third when he blasted one past him. The Sabres got their second goal of the game with a little over a minute left in the game when Dixon Ward notched his forth of the season.

The two team captains, Steve Yzerman and Michael Peca have meeting with their sticks

With the victory, the Red Wings continued their dominating run over the Sabres. In the last nine games the two teams have played, Detroit has won 8 and has one tie. It was back on November 1, 1995 when Buffalo last defeated the Red Wings.

Christmas seems to be a bad time for the Sabres. It was last year at this time that Buffalo started their terrible tail spin and slumped for the remainder of the regular season. The seven goals scored by Detroit were the most scored on the Sabres since January 1 this year when Anaheim routed Buffalo by the exact same score, 7-2. Maybe the Sabres get into that giving mood right around Christmas and it continues on the ice.

"It just seems to fall around this time of year," Michael Peca said, referring to 7-4 and 7-2 losses this time last year. "You'd like it not to happen, especially when you're trying to battle back in the division and the conference. It's something we've got to move forward from."

Even though the shots somehow favored Buffalo, 34-27, the Red Wings absolutely obliterated the Sabres, winning their fourth straight and ninth in their past 10 games.

"In all my years of playing hockey, I've never been involved in a period like that," said Jay McKee."We're not happy. We're all embarrassed."

The Sabres must regroup and get their confidence back in a hurry. They play that Y2K game this Saturday when they host the division leading Toronto Maple Leafs.

"That's the toughest loss, especially at home," Ruff said. "Obviously we are pretty low in confidence in the scoring department. You can see the frustration set in.

About all the goals allowed in the second period, Ruff said, "Our goalies have played so well for such a long time. There were a couple shots tonight that we'd like to have back, but there's not a chance that you could point your finger at either Marty or Dwayne Roloson. They've really done a great job. They've kept us in the top half of the goaltending, save percentage. Going into New Jersey, Marty's goals against was 2.17. You're going to have a night like this.

"One mistake led to another and we lost our composure for a little while - that led to a couple more goals" Ruff continued. "The one thing the team didn't do, they didn't quit. They played a hard first period, they had their chances. You know, I'm getting tired of talking about chances. Chances are irrelevant when you lose a hockey game. You can get beat 7-2 and the shots can be 50-10 and you just want to rip your team apart."

"Basically we played a pretty good period in the first period. We let it slip away, we lost our composure in the second and then found our feet in the third. It's one of those games where you hope you can just bounce back"

Rob Ray thought it was like having a practice. "It was like a drill where we started from center ice all the time," he said. "We looked up at the shot clock, and it seemed like they were scoring on every shot."

"We're trying to be in a frame of mind where we don't get down on ourselves," McKee said. "When you're not playing well, the worst thing you can do is point fingers and be afraid to go out and play. It sounds funny, but we're trying to stay upbeat. Instead of dwelling on one of your worst days ever, we're trying to put it behind us. We're not happy with the last two games. And if this continues, there will be a change of mind. But for now we're trying to stay positive."

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