Sabres find themselves on the brink
By Rick Anderson
April 17, 2000
Eighteen thousand, six hundred and ninety fans packed Buffalo's HSBC Arena Sunday night in hopes of seeing their Buffalo Sabres get some kind of retribution for a bogus goal that helped determine the previous playoff game with the Flyers two days earlier. Instead, what the rabid Buffalo fans got was another lackluster effort from their Sabres as they went down to their third straight defeat against the Flyers in the opening round of the playoffs. It took an empty net goal by Mark Recchi to finally seal the Sabres fate in this game as the Flyers skated off to a 2-0 victory and they take a prodigious 3 games to none lead in the series.
The Sabres came out without the desperation that a team in their position must play in order to remain in the playoffs. Being down two games to none before the opening faceoff, the Sabres played as if nothing were on the line. In fact, it was reminiscent to the way the Sabres played in the first three months of the season when they never could break out of their "Stanley Cup hangover."
The man who scored the infamous "no-goal" the other night in Philly, came back and scored the winner in this one. John LeClair got a perfect feed from Simon Gagne from behind the Buffalo net and he popped a shot through Dominik Hasek's pads at 15:30 into 1st period.
"Primeau did a good job keeping it going along the boards and when Gags got it behind the net, the kid made a nice pass back short side," described LeClair. "I had a lot of net. It was just a great pass by Simon."
With their playoff lives on the line, only two Sabres played with any real intensity and they were Hasek and defenseman Jean-Luc Grand-Pierre. Hasek once again kept Buffalo in the game with 25 saves. The fans only chance to really celebrate in this game was when Hasek stopped Eric Desjardins on a penalty shot awarded to the Flyers in the first period.
In the second period, Hasek had to come up big 12 times, especially when he made a huge save on Andy Delmore when the rookie defenseman came in on Hasek on a 2-on-1.
"No one guy is going to win it for us," Sabres coach Lindy Ruff said. "We need to do it as a team."
Grand-Pierre was credited with 8 hits and most of them were devastating. If more of his teammates had displayed even half of Jean-Luc's drive, the outcome of the game may have been different. As it was, the Sabres were unable to break through the Flyers' trap system and never really threatened Philadelphia goalie Brian Boucher with any serious scoring opportunities except for one that Curtis Brown had in the second period. With about 8 minutes remaining in that period, Brown took the puck away right in front of Boucher and put a weak shot that the Flyers' rookie goalie had no trouble blocking. The rebound came right back out to Brown and he fanned on his second shot. If Brown had kept his composure, the Sabres could have tied it up. As it was, the Sabres never get even close to making Boucher sweat as he stopped 17 shots in all.
The Flyers, taking a page out of the Dallas Stars successful defensive game plan that won them the Stanley Cup last season against Buffalo, put forth a stifling defensive effort. The Sabres had extreme difficulty getting any shot in on Boucher. In the first period, they only got 5 shots on him. Buffalo got six shots in the next two periods. In the end, it was hardly the effort needed by a team that had to get back into the series. Now being behind 3-0 in the series, the Sabres know the odds are really stacked against them.
The last time a team was able to come back from a 3-0 deficit in the NHL playoffs were the New York Islanders who did it the same year Buffalo went to the Finals against these same Flyers, in 1975. Only once before in the entire history of the NHL playoffs has a team beat such insurmountable odds - in 1942 when the Toronto Maple Leafs accomplished that tremendous feat.
While the Sabres have not been able to do as much on the ice, they have been able to talk up a good hockey game. All year the players have talked a good game, saying all the right things and expounding on what they felt needed to be done. Brown continued the Sabres positive jargon after the game.
"By no means are we out of it," Brown declared. "We're still believing we'll get our share of goals. And if we do, we'll be right back in the series."
Brown should try telling that to the 18,960 who shelled out big bucks to see him and his teammates once again come up empty in the scoring department. What they'll say is that the Sabres will be lucky to score another goal in this series.
The Sabres could not penetrate the neutral zone trap that the Flyers set up, and during the few times they did, could get a good shot on Boucher. Buffalo's passes were errant most of the night and the ones on target would usually bounce off the intended receiver's stick.
The Sabres are now in the deepest of holes. They have been fighting their lack of drive and work ethnic all season long. The hole they've dug for themselves has been getting deeper all season. Buffalo made the playoff by the slimmest of margins, qualifying on the final day of the regular season. They can make all the excuses they want, but it was the lack of execution, the lack of good special teams play, lack of driving to the net and providing a screen in front of Boucher, the lack of desperation that has prevented the Sabres from winning a game so far.
"We've got some guys who haven't played up to par," Ruff said. "We're going to win as a team or lose as a team. ... Collectively, we haven't gotten the job done."
Tuesday, the fans will be returning to HSBC Arena for what could be the last time this season when the two teams play Game 4 of the series. The 18,690 faithful will be wondering if they will be seeing the team they saw Sunday or the team that clawed and scraped at the end of the season to make the playoffs. If the Sabres don't play with a little more desperation, the Flyers will have a clean sweep and the Sabres will be swinging their golf clubs much sooner than anyone expected.
John LeClair made sure the winning goal in Game 3 had nothing to do with controversy.
"I kind of had a good feeling about this one," said LeClair. "That controversy had nothing to do with us. We know we got a break and let's move on and we played hard tonight."
Talking about the highly successful Flyer power play, LeClair said, "We've always said that if we get a power-play goal a night, we're going to be in every game. Our power play has been working for us and our penalty killing has been terrific. If we keep it up, we're going to be in good shape."
"We are really confident with our game," said Primeau. "We are confident with our system. We are confident with any five guys on the ice. We are confident with anybody killing penalties."
Hasek was at his best when he stonewalled Eric Desjardins on his penalty shot. Desjardins took the shot when Peter White could not take it after getting injured as a result of being hauled down. White had broken in on Hasek and Alexei Zhitnik had to upend White to prevent him from getting a good shot on the Sabres' goalie.
"I saw it open for a second," Desjardins described his penalty shot. "I wanted to make sure I had two options. If I went too fast, I wouldn't have been able to deke. He's one of the best. It was good we came back and scored a goal."
The Sabres are having a hard time trying to figure out a way to pierce the Flyers' defense.
"It's tight all over," Curtis Brown explained. "Both teams are doing a good job at smothering things out there, but when we do get in there (we must) pay that bigger price just to hang on to it and try to get something toward the net."
Now that there may be only one game left in their season, the Sabres are trying to find any kind of light at the end of the tunnel.
"It's pretty tough to look down the road when you only have one life left," said. Rhett Warrener "We concentrate on one game at a time, the old cliche, but really there are no games past that. If we don't win that, it's all over."
"Our goal is to win the series," said Hasek. "I know you're going to walk away shaking your head. We've won eight games in a row in the playoffs. It's a difficult situation right now. We have to win the next home game to be down, 3-1, and we go from there. It's very frustrating."
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After Recchi's goal, the fans streamed out quietly from the Arena with a bitter taste in their mouths. They had entered the sports complex three hours earlier with the anticipation that their beloved Sabres would finally show some of the character that helped them advance to the Stanley Cup Finals the year before. What the team provided them was a carbon copy of the brand of hockey the team played for most of the regular season.
Brain Boucher stops Vaclav Varada in the third period, making one of his 17 saves.
[AP Photo/Mike Groll]
"I'm not really concerned about the shutout," said Boucher. "I am more happy about the win. We know we're not going to get many goals against this guy (Hasek). The way we played tonight was real patient."
Dominik Hasek gets set to stop the penalty shot taken by Eric Desjardins in the first period.
[HARRY SCULL JR./Buffalo News]
Then there was the penalty trouble the Sabres once again got into. If Sabres fans thought their team would get even the smallest of breaks considering the gift goal the Flyers got on Friday, they had another thing coming. In fact, the officiating once again left a lot to be desired. The Flyers got six man advantages to the Sabres three. LeClair's go came when Philadelphia had the power play and it was the Flyers' fifth power play goal in the series. The Flyers have only scored two other goals, one when they were shorthanded and the final goal in Sunday's game, when the Sabres had a sixth attacker. Playing even strength (even amount of skaters discluding goalies), the Flyers have not had one goal.
Erik Rasmussen gets the snot knocked out of him with a ferocious check by the Flyers' Dan McGillis. The Flyers' toughness and physical size has kept the Sabres pinned down the whole series and the Flyers beat the Sabres 2-0.
[AP Photo/Mike Groll]
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