Site hosted by Angelfire.com: Build your free website today!

Sabres Central

SABRES WINLESS AFTER SIX
By Rick Anderson
Tuesday, October 18, 1999

This is getting serious! The Buffalo Sabres are still winless after losing to the only other winless team in the East, the Philadelphia Flyers by a score of 5-2. The Sabres have their worst start since the beginning of the decade now have a record of 0-4-2. The big question is how will the Sabres ever get another victory?

Buffalo gave Dominik Hasek a rest as Dwayne Roloson started his first game of the season. Roloson made several key saves in the first two periods, but the Flyers came on and scored 3 goals on him in the third period. Two of those goals came 21 seconds apart as Eric Lindros and Valeri Zelepukin put the puck past Roloson in succession. The victory ended the Flyers worst start in their 33 years as an NHL franchise. The Sabres, meanwhile are on the brink of beating their worst start this decade when they started 0-4-3 in 1990.

"You can't really point your finger at a few things,"said Mike Peca. "Our attitudes aren't great right now. There's too many guys just showing up. We're not creating chances. We're making it too easy for them. It's frustrating. You've got to worry. The results at this point in the season are unacceptable. It's our own fault, we don't expect any sympathy, but we've got to change things."

This was a game filled with plenty of hitting and fights. Grand-Pierre and Sandy McCarthy got into a heavy weighty fight, but there were too many fights to mention. Cheap shots and solid hits were the name of the game. It was the most physical game of the season for the Sabres, as both teams slugged it out in an effort to win their first game of the year. Brian Holzinger was injured when Mark Recchi charged into him against the boards. He has a left shoulder injury and will be re-examined today.

Philly scored first at 7:39 of the first period during a power play when Simon Gagne slapped home a rebound past Roloson. The Sabres tied the game in the second period when Michael Peca fed a perfect pass to Erik Rasmussen who was planted to the right of John Vanbeisbrouck. Rasmussen poked it past the Flyer goalie to tie the game at 1. The Sabres actually had the lead in this game as Michal Grosek got credit for a goal after Jay McKee hit the post on his hard slap shot and the puck bounced out to Patrick who originally appeared to put it in. The Sabres were in the position to finally record their first win, but the Flyers pressed even harder after that goal.

In the third period, Lindros scored the winning goal after he was fed a pass from Mikael Reinberg. He beat Roloson when his wrist shot went between the goalie's pads.

"Mikael made a backhand pass to me. I just fired it through the defenseman's legs," said Lindros after the game. "It was one of those shots where I just fired it as quickly as possible."

Twenty one seconds later, Zelepukin put another puck past Roloson when his shot got by Rolie's stick. Eric Desjardins got the Flyers fourth goal to put it away at the 14:50 mark of the final period.

The Sabres only had 15 shots on goal the entire game as the Flyers outshot them 34-15.

"Buffalo has a way of being tenacious, so coming up with some early saves made me feel better," said Vanbiesbrouck. "I'm going to make mistakes, but the key is how you move on from there."

"We know where we are," said Erik Rasmussen. "This is a team built on character. We've got a lot of guys in this locker room that will step up and be vocal at times like this. We put ourselves into this situation, there's no one else responsible. The guys in this room have to turn it up. Some nights only a couple of guys have been going, you can't do that."

"We had a lot of penalty trouble tonight," Lindy Ruff said after the Sabres lost another one. "We've found different ways to lose games. It hasn't been one thing you can pinpoint. It seems like for a couple of games, we were emotionless."

"It's very disappointing, said Peca. "We wanted to put together a strong weekend. We're a struggling team, but we played a couple of struggling teams. We had the opportunity to get in the win column. But we didn't put forth the work. Right now our heads aren't in place. Each guy has to put pressure on himself to focus."

The Sabres Boston and Chicago are now the only winless teams in the NHL. Boston and Chicago have one more point (3 ties). The Sabres next game is Wednesday against Nashville.

     HOME           SEASON'S RESULTS      SABRE TALK MESSAGE BOARD      NEWSROOM      99 PLAYOFFS
THE PLAYERS      STATISTICS      SCHEDULE      PROSPECTS      LIVE GAME RADIO      HISTORY      TEAM INFO
PHOTO GALLERY     MULTIMEDIA      SABRES POLL      TROPHY CASE      LINKS      THE STAFF      E-MAIL SABRESWORD