Sabres clinch playoff berth with gallant defensive effort
By Rick Anderson
April 9, 2000
The Buffalo Sabres, after clawing and scraping just to stay in the race for the past month, finally accomplished their goal of clinching a playoff spot when they tied the Washington Capitals 1-1 Sunday afternoon in the MCI Center. It may not have been pretty, but the Sabres are where they want to be and now are as ready as any team for the playoffs. Buffalo has been playing playoff hockey for the past month and now that they are actually in it, they can take a little breather the next few days and gear up for their playoff opponent, the tough and tumble Philadelphia Flyers.
"This point is unbelievable. This point I think is the best one the Sabres ever got on their way to the playoffs," a joyous Lindy Ruff said after the game. "We went for it - we went out to win the game."
After two scoreless periods, the Sabres finally got the goal that they thought would win it. A little over two minutes into the third period, the Capitals tried to get the puck out of danger with the Sabres pressing and cleared the puck right onto the stick of Sabres' center Chris Gratton. Gratton then passed from just outside the right faceoff circle to Stu Barnes parked all alone right in front of Caps' goalie Olaf Kolzig. Barnes flipped the puck over Kolzig's shoulder top shelf to break the shutout.
The one goal lead didn't last long as Sabres' rookie Maxim Afinogenov made a huge mistake when trying to get it out of his zone. He passed it right onto the stick of Richard Zednik, who blasted a shot after he got over the blue line. The puck hit Rhett Warrener's stick, caromed over Dominik Hasek's glove, hit the crossbar and dropped straight down behind the goal line to tie the game.
"One goal difference and you could be out," Hasek asserted. "But fortunately we played very focused today. They scored a very lucky goal."
The way the Sabres haven't made things easy on themselves all season, one had to know that this game was going to be a nail-biter right down to the final buzzer. That proved to be the case as the Capitals put more pressure on Hasek from that point on. With the Caps buzzing around the Sabres net in the final seconds, Buffalo managed to send the puck down the ice and Dixon Ward beat everybody to the puck to prevent an icing. From there, he was able to prevent the Caps from getting back up the ice and the horn sounded to end the third period. As a result, the Sabres automatically got a point under the new NHL rules this season and the Sabres had nailed down the final playoff spot.
Overtime was just a matter of the Sabres continuing their great defensive game that kept the Capitals off the scoreboard the entire game except for one glaring mistake.
"Somebody said, 'Just let them come down and score and let's get out of here,' which isn't bad thinking," Ruff commented after the game. "But check with them - maybe we can score. It looks better that way."
The Sabres, who had limited the Caps with just 14 shots on Hasek in the regulation, had their hands full when Washington attempted to win the game in overtime. They drilled Hasek with 4 shots while the Sabres managed 2 shots on Kolzig. In all, Hasek made 17 saves while his counterpart was brilliant making 24 stops.
The Sabres, once again playing without the services of Doug Gilmour, who is still battling his nagging flu symptoms, played a solid tight-checking game. The officiating in this game left a lot to be desired by both sides. The referee paring of Kerry Fraser and Don Koharski missed a call when Afinogenov was hooked by a high stick around his neck area and brought down from behind. Curtis Brown got a stick in the face from Steve Konowalchuk and no call was made. There were several times when Sabres players were hauled down and play was allowed to continue. Vaclav Varada was being targeted by Fraser throughout the second period. One time, Varada was tripped up right in front of Kolzig, but Varada got a roughing penalty. Another time, Varada had his stick held and ripped right out of his grasp while he delivered a bland looking check right after he lost his stick. Varada got another roughing penalty for the check, but the Capitals got away with holding his stick. Then near the end of the second period, Varada got his third straight roughing penalty when he leveled a Capital along the boards. His check was clean, but Varada had to sit.
The Sabres penalty killing unit played another superb game and is definitely in playoff mode. Ruff, along with Sabres fans in the MCI Center and those watching the game on television, were on pins and needles until the final horn sounded.
"I beat the heck out of a piece of gum all game long," Ruff said jokingly."We said it probably was going to come down to the last game, but it turned out to be the last period -- the last few minutes. But we got the job done."
"It's hard," replied his counterpart Ron Wilson, the coach of the Capitals. "The adrenaline's going, but how I felt yesterday was incredible elation for the kind of season that we had, rebounding from where we were last year, from where we were at the beginning of the season, coming together and see our team succeed like this where it hasn't before."
The Sabres now await the NHL schedule makers to determine when they will travel to the "City of Brotherly Love" to open their first round series against the Flyers.
The Sabres, who survived a gruesome schedule at the end of the year to barely make the playoffs, knew what was at stake in Washington and were determined to get the job done.
"We knew what we had to do coming into the game," said Brown. "We needed a point. Obviously, they weren't gong to give us too much, they would like to see us out. But we battled though everything. We knew a tie would get us into the playoffs and getting the goal by Stu gave us a two-goal cushion. We've been playing playoff hockey for the last month."
"We just played a real solid effort at both ends of the ice and tried to create some chances for ourselves," said Barnes. "We've had to work real hard to get into the playoffs and we've played some real good hockey down the stretch."
Gilmour, who has had what has been described as a "stomach virus" has been sick since the day he came to Buffalo. It was believed that he was getting better last week, but has taken a turn for the worse. To lose Gilmour for the two most crucial games of the season was a big blow for the Sabres' offensive plans.
Said Ruff about his veteran, "The absence of Doug Gilmour was a big loss."
Sabres captain Michael Peca did not have his retribution payback of Konowalchuk. The two hardly made any contact. But Peca did have to pick up his game in Gilmour's absence.
"I don't think teams will be looking at us as a team that barely scraped into eighth place even though that's the way things played out," Peca said. "Over the course of the second half, I think people have seen a really strong, deep team with all four lines, six (defensemen) and two goalies that can win us hockey games."
"We were the ones who put us in this predicament, and we had to pull ourselves out of it," said Peca . "We didn't want favors from around the league. We wanted to do our work on our own. We had some really big performances from a lot of guys down the stretch. The result is that we got a playoff spot."
When asked if the game plan was more conservative because the Sabres only needed a point, Peca replied, "Mentally, how do you prepare to tie a game? In our own minds, it was to go out and try to win the game. If we fell short and tied the game, we knew that was going to be fine too. But by no means did we want to be passengers in this game. We wanted to go out and be aggressive and I think we did that for the most part."
Ruff, who can now find some time to buy a new pack of gum, can relax a little before he fine tunes his game plan for the Flyers.
"We really played a good first two periods," Ruff reflected on the game with the Capitals. "When you look at the chances we had, the opportunities we missed, we knew anything could happen. We played a pretty safe third period. We didn't talk about (playing for a tie), but you don't want to put yourself in position where they can win the game."
HOME
SEASON'S RESULTS
SABRE TALK MESSAGE BOARD
NEWSROOM
99 PLAYOFFS
With the Carolina Hurricanes beating the Atlanta Thrashers, the Sabres had to get at least a point in the standings to beat out the charging ‘Canes and clinch the final playoff seed in the Eastern Conference.
The Sabres celebrate after clinching the final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference by tying the Washington Capitals 1-1 in the MCI Center.
[AP Photo]
"We were the better team today; they got a lucky goal," said Hasek. "Until there were 10 minutes left, we didn't even think about the tie."
Jeff Halpern tries to stuff it past Dominik Hasek in overtime, but the Dominator is there to cover up in the Sabres 1-1 tie with the Capitals.
[Washington Post Photo/Joel Richardson]
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
