Sabres come together in Calgary
By Rick Anderson
March 19, 2000
Just when the Buffalo Sabres look like they're ready to be written off, the ENTIRE team shows up for one of the first times this season. The fragmented Sabres came together as a unit and played one of their most solid games of the year in beating the struggling Calgary Flames 5-1 Saturday night in Calgary. Vaclav Varada scored two goals, one on a breakaway late in the game, but it was the defense that won this game and kept the Sabres in the hunt for the final playoff spot in the East.
"I got back to the dressing room a few minutes late and they gave me a big applause, it was funny,"laughed Hasek when telling about his entry into the locker room after the game. "I haven't played well lately so I guess that's why they did it."
Hasek did not have to do it alone in this game. The defense, which struggled in the first two games of the western road trip by allowing 12 goals, stepped up and played a solid game. The Buffalo forwards also got into the defensive-minded game and came back to help out the blue liners.
"We decided to pay special attention to defense tonight and we played a good defensive game," Chris Gratton said. "There were no second or third shots by them tonight and we kept them away from the net."
Twelve goals against in two games could harm the psyche of a lot of teams. Lindy Ruff was determined not to let that happen. He mixed up the defensive pairings and has been stressing that the defense had to come up with a big game against the Flames if the Sabres wanted any chance to stay in the thick Eastern Conference playoff race. As a result, the breakdowns in the defensive zone were kept at a minimum as the Flames' were not allowed to pounce upon to many rebounds.
"Today we played a lot better," Ruff said. "We need four or five good games like that. Dom made some big saves and we seemed to feed off of that. We're on kind of a roller coaster, so many of our games have gone the other way."
The Sabres offense has not been the problem since they acquired Doug Gilmour and Gratton just before the trading deadline. Gilmour got another assist and has gotten at least one point in the five games he's been with the club. Gratton added two assists against the Flames. Buffalo, which had one of the weakest offenses in the NHL before the big trade, now seems to be able to score at will. However, the big offensive push has come at the expense of the defensive and has opened up the games into shootouts. Ruff wanted to stress defense first and foremost. A good defensive game always starts with the goaltender.
"We talked about playing better defense,"commented Hasek. "We played really well. That was the key. That's why we won the game."
"I've been struggling, the whole team's been struggling, especially on the road where twice in a row we gave up six goals," Hasek continued. "Tonight, the defense helped; played great. They helped me out a lot and made my job easier. It was the way we should play to make the playoffs."
"He was pumped up before the game," Varada said about Hasek. "You could tell that he was on his game. They didn't really have many chances to score."
Knowing that they had avoid the mistakes that cost them 12 goals in the first two road games, the Sabres buckled down and played a conservative defensive game in the first period that ended in a scoreless tie. Getting through the first period without allowing a goal was a major boost in confidence for the Sabres, and they came out roaring in the second with their guns a-blazing.
Gratton picked up a loose puck in the Flames zone after Derek Morris slipped while skating it out and Gratton fed it to Vladimir Tsyplakov. Tsypy spotted Varada out in front of former Sabres' goaltender Grant Fuhr, and the V-Man one-timed it past Fuhr to break the goose egg. The goal came at the 1:01 mark of the period, but the Sabres were just warming up their guns.
After Marc Savard took a slashing penalty over midway through the second period for wacking at Hasek's glove when the he was attempting to cover a loose puck, the Sabres power play went on the attack. Dixon Ward broke down the right side after getting a pass from Gratton and blasted a slap shot from the right faceoff circle past Fuhr's catching mit and into the net's top corner. Then just 87 seconds later, Curtis Brown notched his 19th goal of the season when Miroslav Satan fed him and Brown's slap shot also beat Fuhr.
"He's so patient," Brown described Satan's playmaking abilities. "It's the same way when he's scoring. I've been the recipient of a few nice plays from him and that was another one."
The Flames appeared to be ready to make a comeback when Jeff Shantz wacked the puck in midair behind Hasek 4:30 into the final stanza. Hasek made the original save and Shantz hit the puck twice while the it floated near the crossbar. Ruff contested the goal, claiming that Shantz hit it with a high stick, but the video judge ruled the goal was good.
With the pressure now being on the defense to prevent another third period comeback by their opposition, the Sabres came together to form a solid wall around Hasek for the rest of the game. In doing so, they only recorded two shots in the third period, but they made good on both of them.
At 12:54 into 3rd period, Maxim Afinogenov made a nifty move to get past former Sabres' defenseman Phil Housley and zig-zagged past a couple other Flames to put a shot on Fuhr that bounced off Clark Wilm and into the net, making it 4-1 Buffalo. It was the second power play goal of the night for the Sabres and Maxim's 15th of the season.
With only a few seconds left in the game, Varada capped off an explosive game by stealing the puck at mid ice and racing down on Fuhr. Varada was not going to miss this golden opportunity and he buried it past the future Hall of Fame goalie. On that play, Varada did what Satan could not do earlier. Satan had almost broken his scoreless slump in the second period when he too had a breakaway on Fuhr, made his patented move of faking the initial shot and then going to his backhand. Fuhr was with Satan all the way and the Sabres' former leading goal scorer is still looking for his 30th of the season.
Varada has been playing his without abandon this past month and while he has only scored 6 goals this season, he has been a key ingredient to the Sabres' offensive resurgence.
"It's nice," Varada reflected. "I feel like I was part of the game again. We needed the points tonight. I guess maybe more than them. It's a tough battle in our conference, but some teams are still struggling -- Carolina is losing, Montreal isn't playing that well. It's right there for us, we just have to do it."
The Sabres and Canadiens collide in Buffalo's newly renamed HSBC Arena Monday. The Canadiens are two points in front of the Sabres and have two games in hand.
Talking about what Ruff did to get the Sabres more defensive-minded, Varada said, "The coaching staff was very mad at us because of the games before. Six goals in (two) following nights is not the kind of game we want to play. You just have to keep it simple and believe in Dom and get two or three goals on the board."
With Michael Peca still on the mend from his shoulder injury, Varada is getting comfortable with his new linemate Chris Gratton.
"He's a big strong guy," Varada remarked. "He skates really well and he has a great. I guess everyone fits with me and Vladimir. We're missing Michael, but we're getting scoring chances and points on the board to (with Gratton)."
Gilmour, meanwhile, has been the perfect addition to a Sabres club that has been struggling in goal production for over two years. He reflected his experience in Chicago.
"It was an unpleasant year ... in Chicago," Gilmour said. "Obviously, when I signed there, I didn't think it was going to work out that way. But no regrets . . . time to move on."
When Black Hawks' GM Mike Smith made it known that Gilmour was on the trading block, the newly acquired Sabre was left hanging in the wind, not knowing what team he was going to latch on with.
"In hindsight, you'd rather not know and kinda just let it happen," Gilmour related. "But from the day Mike came in it was pretty much a given that I was going to be traded. Whatever the reason, I don't know, but now it's all over and I'm very happy with the situation."
Gilmour, who wants to spend more time with his young daughter, is determined to call it quits after another season.
"That's something I'm very strong on," Gilmour said about his family stance and decision to spend more time with his daughter once he does retire.
"With the move to Buffalo, my daughter's only 45 minutes away from me now. And the day I retire and go back home, she'll come and live with me."
Talking about the disgust he displayed after scoring the Sabres third goal when the Canucks pelted Buffalo with 6, Gilmour said, "That Vancouver game . . . it was just a poor performance by everybody. Now it's time to go back to the basics as a hockey club and go from there. The way to look at this game tonight is: We already have a point going into the game, let's work towards two."
Hasek was back in form and it may have taken a game on the bench to put his head back in proper perspective.
"I didn't play well in my last five games," admitted Hasek. "I needed to shake it up. This was an important win. We had to prove we can do it. It was probably our biggest game of the year because we needed to win."
Flames coach Brian Sutter was echoing the words heard around the Sabres dressing room recently.
"Little mistakes are ending up in the net," Sutter said. "It seems we can't do anything without that happening. We have to make our own breaks, but good teams don't let you do that."
Sutter's counterpart in the Sabres' dressing room knows all too well how a little break can change the entire flow of a game, and a season for that matter.
"We've been on a roller-coaster ride," said Ruff. "I would love to say that this is the one that sends us in the right direction. It could go the other way."
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Dominik Hasek started the game after watching on the bench in Vancouver and played one of his best games in weeks. Hasek faced 30 shots and even on the one goal he allowed, made some spectacular saves before his shutout attempt was foiled.
The Flames' Andrei Nazarov gets entangled with Dominik Hasek in an effort to cause traffic
[AP Photo/Jeff McIntosh]
With the Sabres suddenly up 3-0, the question was whether they would now abandon their defensive game and open it up. That was not the case as Buffalo continued its tight-checking game and held the Flames off the scoreboard for the final 6 minutes of the period.
Vaclav Varada runs into Flames' Jason Wiemer during the first period. Varada scored two goals in Buffalo's 5-1 victory over Calgary.
[AP Photo/Jeff McIntosh]
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