Sabres take the two points and run
By Rick Anderson
January 26, 2000
The Sabres scoring slump continues. Even though they did defeated the Tampa Bay Lightning 2-1, it was an ugly victory. Tampa Bay had lost the night before 8-2 to the Washington Capitals. They came into Buffalo in the midst of a 5 game losing streak. In their last 13 games, the Lightning had a 1-11-1 record. But they came out and gave the Sabres a real battle for their money Tuesday night.
"I couldn't ask my guys to burn any more fuel in their tanks,"said Steve Ludzik, the Lightning coach. "I'm proud of every one of them."
With Dan Cloutier pulled in favor of the extra attacker late in the third period, Tampa gave the Sabres a scare when they got a couple great scoring opportunities. With only 13 seconds left, Fredrik Modin got off a wicked slap shot. on Martin Biron, but Biron stood his ground and made a great save. Only 2 seconds previous, Pavel Kubina took a wrist shot that Biron made a save on. Before that, there was a flurry around the net with Tampa players crashing into the Sabres' goalie, but once again Biron prevented the Lightning from getting the tying goal. The Sabres were able to withstand the Lightning storm and skated off the ice with two points in their pockets.
At this point in the season, the Sabres and coach Lindy Ruff don't care how they win their games. Two points are two points. Ugly only counts in beauty contests. Hockey is definitely not a beauty contest.
The Sabres opened the scoring in the second period as Miroslav Satan got his 24th goal of the year when he got the puck behind the net and beat Cloutier who was caught on the other side of the net. The goal came at the 11:59 mark of the period.
The Sabres scored again, just 2:37 later when Erik Rasmussen got off a tremendous slap shot on Cloutier that the Lightning backstop blocked. However, it resulted in a huge rebound that Sabres' captain Michael Peca pounced on and he poked it past Cloutier. It was Peca's second goal in two games and his eighth of the season.
"We had been noticing that Tampa Bay's defense was pinching in on the faceoffs," said the Sabres' captain. "Dixon made the pass out to Rasmussen, who shot it. The puck just came out to me."
Rasmussen was the best Sabre skater Tuesday night as he not only got a big assist on Peca's goal but delivered 4 punishing hits. He was named the game's first star.
"Without Varada and Primeau in the lineup, he's one guy that has to supply some energy and some hitting," Ruff said about his feisty winger. "He went out of his way to finish checks. Defensively he came back and made plays for us. In the last three or four games, he's played pretty sound for us."
Darcy Tucker was a thorn in the Sabres' side all night. He spoiled Martin Biron's bid for his fifth shutout of the season when he got a pass from Chris Gratton behind the Buffalo net and Tucker put it past Biron's glove.
After scoring that goal, Tucker started using his stick to hit other things besides pucks. He leveled two players within one minute when he clobbered Buffalo players with a high stick. The most flagrant stick was when he hit Jay McKee square in the face when the Sabres' defenseman wasn't looking. McKee was face down on the ice for a couple minutes before he was able to get off. There wasn't a penalty called on either of Tucker's high sticks.
The Lightning gained momentum after Tucker's goal and it took some good goaltending by Biron to keep Tampa Bay from tying it up, especially near the end of the game. Biron ended up with 21 saves and helped the Sabres break out of their 3-game losing streak.
"Biron played a spectacular game," said Ludzik. "He made some big saves."
Ruff agreed.. "He looked pretty sound," he said. "He had little bit of a bad break on the goal that went in."
"We didn't give them too much room,"Biron said. "They had to work for everything they were going to get. Defensively we played a great game."
Buffalo had plenty of chances in this game to tally up a lot of goals, but once again they could not find the back of the net. The Sabres made Cloutier look like the second coming of Dominik Hasek. They had a two man advantage in the first period and could not get it past him. The Sabres scorers are definitely snake bit.
Just like last year when the Sabres would play down to the level of the weaker competition, the Sabres have a tendency of making poor teams look good.
"Somebody joked that they had guys trying to get traded at the deadline," Peca kidded about the intense play of the Lightning.
It would not have been a joking matter if the Sabres had somehow found a way to lose to the hapless Lightning.
"At no point were we laughing with the lead," said McKee. "The last week or so we've been playing better defensively. It's due in part to the support from forwards, and we're spending a little more time in the other team's end."
"It was in the backs of our minds, that's for sure," McKee said about possibly losing to Tampa. "With the way we've been playing, if we lost tonight I don't know how close to rock bottom you'd call it. I think we were a little bit nervous in understanding how big a game this was."
The Sabres get to play a much better team when they host the Ottawa Senators on Friday night. The Sabres beat the Senators 7-4 the last time they played them in Ottawa.
In other news, Dominik Hasek had his first full practice with the Sabres since suffering that torn groin on October 29. He participated in the practice for around 25 minutes. Hasek has stated his intention of playing in the All-Star game next weekend.
When the Sabres couldn't score a goal on the goalie who allowed 8 goals the night before, the fans in Marine Midland Arena started to get impatient.
"It's a matter of getting that first goal," Peca said. "On the last two games on the road, if we get the first goal it's a totally different game. We played well and skated well, but when the other team gets a couple all of a sudden you're playing from behind. When you are a team that's in desperate need of goals and wins, that's not the best atmosphere."
"Typically, this is a tough game to get into," Ruff said. "We got off to a pretty decent start, then we tightened up a little bit and did not want to make many plays after it was 2-1. Overall, we played a pretty good game from most people.
"It's very nice to get a win at home. It's one win, but it could start something for us. We've got to try to build off that."
The victory over Tampa was Buffalo's first at home since the 8-1 thrashing of Toronto on New Year's night.
Biron may be taking a back seat if Hasek comes back in a week or so. But the added pressure of having the Dominator breathing down his neck did not seem to affect him.
"Sometimes, when you feel like you have the heat on, you come in nervous," Biron said. "We played a solid, hard, forechecking game. That's the only reason we played a good defensive game. They could not get through the neutral zone, get 2-on-1s, 3-on-2s. That's the only reason we got away with that two-goal lead through two periods."
Now that he has scored 2 goals in two games, Peca is starting to get the monkey off his back. Now his job is to help the team rid itself of its giant gorilla.
"It's tough enough as it is coming back from a west coast and playing at home a few days later. said Peca. "But to not get the results that we wanted with three straight losses can make it even tougher. You don't know the kind of reception that you're going to get from the fans. But we wanted to come out with a good start, get an early lead. It makes it a lot easier when you are playing at home when you don't have to press and worry about making mistakes and hearing the boos. Again the two points are the most important thing."
HOME
SEASON'S RESULTS
SABRE TALK MESSAGE BOARD
NEWSROOM
99 PLAYOFFS
Struggling against the weak Lightning team highlighted that fact that the Sabres confidence level is at an all-time low right now. Tampa was coming off that 8-2 blowout by the Caps and was playing its second straight game. The Sabres were not able to capitalize on the tired Lightning and in fact looked like the team that had played two nights in a row.
Brian Holzinger flies past Dan Cloutier in attempt to create traffic
On the whole, the Sabres were lucky to get out of the game with the two points. Their passing was bad and newly acquired Vladimir Tsyplakov was either suffering from extreme jetlag or is a slower skater than Vaclav Varada. The jury is still out on the "big" trade the Sabres made in exchange for an 8th round draft choice.
Fredrik Modin tries to knock Miroslav Satin over the boards
THE PLAYERS
STATISTICS
SCHEDULE
PROSPECTS
LIVE GAME RADIO
HISTORY
TEAM INFO
PHOTO GALLERY
MULTIMEDIA
SABRES POLL
TROPHY CASE
LINKS
THE STAFF
E-MAIL SABRESWORD
Copyright © 2000 Sabres Central, all rights reserved
