Lucky Brown goal ties the knot for Sabres
By Rick Anderson
March 2, 2000
The Buffalo Sabres salvaged a point Wednesday night in Madison Square Garden as they came back from a two goal deficit to tie the New York Rangers 3-3. It took a lucky power play goal by Curtis Brown to tie the game late in the third period.
"This point was so big," Sabres' captain Michael Peca said. "I think we'll come to realize just how important this point is down the road when things become more compressed in the standings."
As they did in the previous meeting against the Rangers, the Sabres collapsed in the second period, allowing three unanswered goals. It all started when the Sabres drew three straight penalties. They killed the first two, but at 10:29 into 2nd period Adam Graves finally put one past Dominik Hasek and the game was deadlocked. Brian Leetch started the play when he took the puck behind the Buffalo goal and fed Graves, who tipped it in past Hasek.
The tie didn't last long as Jan Hlavac put two past the Dominator in less than three minutes. In a matter of 5 minutes, the Rangers came from being one down to leading 3-1. It was very reminiscent of last Friday's game when the Rangers scored 5 unanswered goals.
Petr Nedved, who had a hat trick in the last game against the Sabres, was the key element in generating the next two Rangers' goals. Brian Holzinger turned the puck over to Nedved and he and Hlavac skated in on Hasek on a 2-on-1. Nedved made a nifty cross-ice pass to Hlavac, who shot it up top to beat Hasek, giving the Rangers the lead.
"That was a great shot,"said Hasek of Hlavac's goal. "He put it in a perfect spot."
Hlavac put another one behind Hasek just 2:27 later after Nedved forced Alexei Zhitnik to blindly pass from behind his own net and Radek Dvorak intercepted it in the right circle. Hlavac was the recipient of Dvorak's pass, who one-timed a shot past his fellow countryman to up the Rangers' lead to 3-1.
At that point, it seemed like the Sabres were about to suffer another blowout at the hands of the Rangers. But Buffalo, who had outplayed New York in the first period, once again took the play to the Rangers in the third and good things happened.
With 12:29 remaining in the third, Vaclav Varada threw a pass out to Peca, and Peca's slap shot hit the top shelf putting the Sabres within one goal.
The Sabres' captain went to a higher source to help the Sabres battle back from what seemed to be another portentous loss to the Rangers.
"I prayed,"admitted Peca. "I was just asking for the strength to lead these guys. I really did. It was the time we had to step up. The next shift, we went out and scored."
"I don't do that enough," said Brown about shooting the puck towards the net, even at a bad angle. "If it was written on the wall, it couldn't be any clearer."
"He was in perfect position,"said Richter about the actual goal scorer Lacroix. "It hit his shinguard in just the right spot and came back on net."
The Sabres almost won it in the last minute of regulation. Varada made a nice pass to Tsyplakov, but Richter robbed the Russian.
The overtime was frantic as Hasek had to make several huge saves, one in which he came almost out to the blue line to make a sliding save.
With the tie, the Sabres remain one point behind the eighth place Rangers. Buffalo has off until Saturday afternoon, when they play another game in the New York City area, this time with the Islanders.
Michael Peca has been on a tear for almost a month now. His goal last night was his fourth in two games and gave him 17 for the season.
"We didn't have much fire. Somebody had to do it,"said Varada about the captain. "Michael was the guy. He scored. That changed everything. After that, we outplayed them."
The line of Peca, Varada and Tsyplakov have been clicking on all cylinders this past week.
"I don't know why, but we understand each other really well," said Tsyplakov, who speaks Russian, while Varada and Peca find it hard to understand his broken English. "It's like we've played a couple years together."
"To be down two goals in the third period and come back to tie was a good point," Hasek said. "This was the biggest game of the season for us."
Hasek made 28 saves and his biggest were in the overtime as he kept the Rangers from winning.
"I think he's still the best goalie in the league," Nedved contended. "We were kind of due to start scoring some goals because he's been shutting us down for some time."
"I guess we'll take the point," he continued, "but we know how important it would have been if we could have gotten the two points."
The Rangers were still fuming about the lucky goal that Brown scored to tie it.
"The third goal is on a power play and it bounces in off our guy," Leetch said. "Still, it hurts to be up by two goals in the third and not get the win."
"There's nothing you can do about a bad break like that," said former Sabres' coach and GM Muckler. "John (MacLean) is working his butt off to do the right thing and he gets a high stick (penalty). That's kind of a bad break for us there.
"Then, of course, the way they scored the goal was a bad break too. What we've got to do at this time of year is say, 'We got a point and we've got to look towards Florida.' We can't dwell on the bad breaks we got or anything like that. Overall, I'm happy."
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Like the game between the two clubs on Friday, the Sabres took the early lead and seemed to have command of the game in the first period. Vladimir Tsyplakov tipped in a shot at the 4:53 mark of the first period to open the scoring. The Sabres had quite a few glorious scoring opportunities that they could not capitalize on in the early going. Mike Richter stopped 7 of the 6 shots the Sabres put on him in the opening period.
Dominik Hasek slides way out of the net to make the save on Theoren Fleury during OT as Jean-Luc Grand-Pierre tries to check Fleury.
It wasn't until late in the contest that the Sabres got a couple huge breaks. John MacLean high-sticked Jay McKee in the face and picked up a penalty. Nineteen seconds later, the Sabres tied up the game on a fluky goal by Brown with 3:11 remaining in the period. Brown, who was to the right of Richter and behind the goal line, shot the puck and Richter blocked it with his stick. The puck bounced off the Rangers' Eric Lacroix and headed into the net for Brown's 16th of the season.
Vladimir Tsyplakov scores the first goal against Mike Richter
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