Satan finds new home and turns up the heat
By Rick Anderson
Thursday, November 25, 1999

The Buffalo Sabres shattered the spell that Olaf Kolzig has had on them since the Eastern Conference championship a year and a half ago by beating him five times last night in their 5-2 victory over the Washington Capitals. Miroslav Satan, booted from his comfortable surroundings by upstart Maxim Afinogenov, found a new home Wednesday night and promptly turned up the heat on Olie the Goalie. Maxim, who has been turning heads with his awesome play making abilities, squeezed Satan out of his right wing spot on the Curtis Brown-Michal Grosek line and put Miro in Noman's land, where he was searching for himself and where his new linemates were. That all ended last night as Satan scored the Sabres first two goals and had a huge assist on Buffalo's fifth goal in the third when he and Brian Holzinger broke down on Kolzig with a shorthanded breakaway.

Olaf Kozig stops Geoff Sanderson point blank while Calle Johansson clears rebound

"It's usually tough to score on him," said Satan about the mastery of the Sabres Kolzig usually has. "This time we found a way to beat him. I'm not really sure how."

Sabres coach Lindy Ruff teamed Satan up with Wayne Primeau and Stu Barnes and the threesome had an impressive showing last night. When asked how he was affected by switching to a new line, Satan said, "After a couple of games, I was looking around and I didn't know where I was because I was so used to those two guys (Grosek and Brown). Last season we played together pretty much the whole season long and also the beginning of this season. Right now I think we finally found the second line and this combination of Stu Barnes and Wayne Primeau should work."

When asked a question about the third line of Satan-Barnes and Primeau, Ruff joked, "They're now our first line and the other line is our third line. I said that we were going to experiment a couple of days and that we were only going to know in a game how it worked out. I thought that line had a good night. They seem to create the chances. I think that if you can get each line creating five or six chances you've had a pretty good night. Almost every line was in on creating the chances."

Satan started the rout of Olie 15:44 into 1st period when he got his stick on a shot by defenseman Jason Woolley, who was playing his first game since suffering a rib injury. The puck got past Kolzig for Satan's tenth of the season.

"Jason Woolley saw me in front of the net and just threw it in my direction and I just put the stick on it and I was lucky enough to get it in." Satan said. "You never know what's going to happen on those deflections."

The Sabres dominated play in the first two periods and Kolzig kept the Capitals in the hunt with some brilliant stops in those periods.

"They were flying," said Oates. "They came out in the first period and owned us. It was embarrassing."

After Ulf Dahlen scored a power play goal to tie it at the 3:53 mark of the second period, Satan performed his magic when he was sent on a breakaway by a Primeau pass up the middle. Satan deked Kolzig to the left and backhanded the puck into the open right corner to put the Sabres up 2-1.

"I just had the goalie in front of me and he was moving to the right side so I went to the other direction and put it in," Satan described his second goal. "I missed those in practice because the goalie knows me well enough. When I go against somebody who doesn't know me well enough, I am comfortable enough to try that move."

Another Sabre who came up huge Wednesday night was rookie goaltender Martin Biron who posted his ninth victory of the season. Once again the Sabres kept their foe from getting many chances in the first period when they limited the Capitals to only 5 shots. However, in the third period, the 22 year old rookie played his best hockey of the season as he stopped all 16 of Washington's shots. A lot of his saves were in Hasek-like fashion.

Commenting about the protection he's been getting in the first period, Biron said, "We've gave up 8 shots in the last three first periods that we've played. It's really important when you know that in Pittsburgh we didn't come out in the first period like that. In the last three games we've come out hot in the first period. I think that's where we took the game away from Atlanta and tonight Washington because we came out in the first period and didn't give them too much. The shorthanded goal that we scored when Miro had the breakaway was just a beauty. You're up 4-2, you don't know, they might come in and get a tighter and score a goal. But we go up the other way and score a goal."

About shutting down the Caps premier goal scorer Petr Bondra, Biron said, "We did a good job on him trying to shut him down. You don't see him around. He's working his weaves, and just waiting for an opportunity. He's pretty dangerous, but he didn't get the bounces tonight."

Ruff was angry about the Capitals first goal, after the Sabres got a penalty on a huge hit Cory Sarich had on 6'-3" 225 pound Chris Simon.

"He had the big hit on Simon that by no means was a penalty," Ruff said. "The officials got bored for awhile, decided that nothing had been called yet and called it. But it was a great hit."

"Jay (McKee) was trying to block it, and I didn't see it," Biron said about Dahlen's shot that rang off both goal posts and into the net. "I guessed and planted myself where I thought the shot would be, but it was perfect."

The Sabres came out like gang-busters as they put 12 shots on Kolzig in the first and 14 in the second. Washington, starting off slow, picked up steam by getting 8 on Biron in the second and scored on two of them. In the final stanza, the Caps unleashed a barrage on Biron, but the Sabres new kid in the crease came up big and kept the Capitals from taking the lead.

Curtis Brown, also had a big night for the Sabres, adding his ninth and tenth tallies of the season.

The Sabres went on a power play and just over a minute after Satan's breakaway goal. Brown ended the Capitals attempt to set a modern day NHL record for successful penalty kills when the puck was passed out in front and he beat Satan to it and put a backhander past Kolzig. That broke Washington's streak of 53 shorthanded situations of not allowing a goal. That tied the record, but the Sabres made sure that record was not broken in Marine Midland Arena.

Curtis Brown said about his ninth goal of the season, "We've stressed about trying to get it back to the point so they could shoot it. They made a great play, the rebound came out and I was just ‘Johnny-on-the-spot.' I was where they tell me to stand right in front of the goalie and I was able to flip it in."

About breaking the Caps streak of not allowing a power play goal, Ruff said, "They were feeding off the fact that they were going after something. It was a team record for them and a league record and it was nice to pop one in right off the bat."

"You're playing a good game and outshooting them and thinking there should be a bigger gap," said Cory Sarich. "Curtis comes out with a great shot, and snuck one through. It was a big spark for us; it gave us some breathing room."

Dahlen got his second of the night when he got past Jay McKee and flipped the puck over Biron's shoulder to tighten the game to 3-2.

"I'm not really excited about it," Dahlen said about scoring two goals. "It doesn't really matter when you lose the game. It is fun to score goals but it was about winning and we didn't win tonight. It was a big game. We're close in the standings and it would have meant a lot to us if we won the game. And we didn't."

Brown went to work again in the third period when he banged the puck off Kolzig and into the net.

"On the second one, Grosek made a good play over to me and I just shot the puck," said Brown."The rebound was laying there for me tonight. I think we're moving the puck a little bit better, and we have the confidence to start doing those things. We could have had a few power-play goals tonight, and not just one."

With the Capitals on a power play, Satan stole the puck and darted in on Kolzig. Trying to score his second straight breakaway on Olie, Satan shot it on net but Kolzig kicked it to his right. Holzinger, following up on the play, banged it home at the 14:32 mark for the Sabres fifth and final goal of the game.

"There are some games when you wonder why we are not skating that well," said Ruff. "Tonight was the night where it seemed like everybody had their legs. Satan's speed on the shorthanded goal was probably the reason why we got that goal too from Holzinger coming up from behind."

Olie the Goalie did not have his typical game against Buffalo. The man who stole the Eastern Conference championship from the Sabres two years ago, was in no mood to give interviews after the game. After allowing the second-most goals the team has given up this season, he kicked his locker and stormed out of the locker room.

In his post game interview, Ruff said, "I liked the way we came out, I liked the way we skated. We gave up a couple goals only on four or five chances. We had four or five breakaways in the game and our speed was evident. Play making wise, I thought we made a lot of really good plays offensively that created a lot of good chances for us. We've been working on our neutral zone play, and defensively and offensively. Just some guys that hit some holes and we made some good passes."

The two big Sabres scorers this night had plenty of compliments to throw around.

"It was great to see a couple of guys have great games," added Satan. "I was pleased with this effort tonight. The last couple of games I have had so many opportunities. The other night I hit the crossbar. Sometimes it has to go in, and in this case it did."

"The big thing was for us to put together a solid performance for 60 minutes," Brown said. "There haven't been too many nights this season where we could say that. We went out and played hard. We stuck to our game plan."

Kolzig's mystique had always baffled Ruff and the Sabres as a whole. He had the ability to shut down the Sabres shooters and steal a lot of games in Buffalo.

"The team and Kolzig had always played well against us in this building," Ruff said about Olie. "We knew that we were going to have to come up with a real good effort to shake them out of their game. Number one, we had to make sure that we took care of Bondra and then after that it was Oates. We did a good job in that area."

Talking about another outstanding game by Sarich, Ruff said, "I think overall, our defense played a strong game and Cory was no exception. He did a great job on the power play and I mentioned his physical side of the game. There haven't been many games where you could pick out Cory and say ‘Boy, he's struggled.' He has been the exact opposite. He's been solid for quite some time now."

The Sabres, who won their third in a row and a league-high seventh straight at home by thrashing the Capitals, try to extend that streak tomorrow night when the St. Louis Blues invade Marine Midland Arena.

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