Sabres have Blues after blowing 2-goal lead
By Rick Anderson
January 24, 2002
The Sabres opened the game as if they were going to be doing the blowing out, as they scored the first two goals and looked to be in complete control of the game halfway through the fist period. Miroslav Satan scored a shorthanded goal and a powerplay goal for the 2-0 lead.
Then a wacky bounce seemed to ignite the Blues. While on the power play, Al MacInnis rifled the puck behind the net. Sabres goalie Martin Biron went behind the net to play it, but it took a crazy bounce off the boards and came right back out in front of the net to Mike Keane staring at a vacated net. Biron tried to circle the net and get back in. By the time he got back into the crease, the puck was already enmeshed in the net.
"I've seen it happen where it goes right off the glass and hits our guy in front of the net," reflected Biron, who made 20 saves. "You can shoot probably 100 pucks on the glass and maybe get one like this. I saw it all the way; I just couldn't get back."
The Sabres appeared as if they were going to blow the house down when they came out of the gates. Satan got the Sabres rolling with his shorthanded goal. With Taylor Pyatt in the penalty box for high-sticking Doug Weight, Stu Barnes got between a Pavol Demitra pass and its intended receiver and blew down the ice on a 2-on-0 break with Satan. Barnes faked a shot on Blues goalie Brent Johnson and made a perfect pass to Satan who found the open corner. Then Satan scored again 9 minutes later, again fed by Barnes to make it 2-0.
Then Keane capitalized on the lucky bounce and an open net for the Blues to pull within 1 at the 16:39 mark and two minutes later, Sergei Varlamov connected when his shot off the crossbar went behind Biron. From then on, the Blues flooded the Sabres zone and their net with goals by Mike Van Ryn, Dallas Drake and Doug Weight.
Van Ryn's first NHL goal was the game winner into 7:31 the second stanza as his shot from the right faceoff circle whizzed past Biron's glove and into the net. One could sense the air being let out of the Sabres sails with that goal.
The Sabres now have lost 3 out of 4 games against much superior western teams. They aren't mathematically out of the playoff hunt yet, but time is definitely running short.
"We don't have any excuses,"said Alexei Zhitnik."Nobody is going to feel sorry for ourselves. There's no reason to lose any games right now. Right now any team can win any game. It doesn't matter who you play. Like I said, there's no excuse to not get a point or anything."
There was talk about how the Sabres could not bounce back from a little adversity.
"We were sound, we were killing penalties and the power play got one for us," said Rhett Warrener. "Things looked good and then we got a bad bounce and the adversity really got to us."
"We're a team that doesn't have the luxury to make the big mistakes," added Sabres coach Lindy Ruff. "We make the big mistakes, and it goes into our net."
The Blues now have won ten straight games and luck certainly has a way of keeping big streaks like that rolling.
"It's 2-0 and it looks like it's not tonight but we got a fortunate bounce and we've been getting some breaks along the way," admitted Blues coach Joel Quenneville.
Read ESPN's Game Recap for more game details.
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The Sabres are singing the Blues these days, and it is not in honor of the St. Louis Blues either. The Blues turned around a 2-0 Sabres lead to a 5-2 blowout. While the other teams hovering around the 8th playoff spot in the East are winning, the Sabres are falling out of contention. Losing their last two games to the Avs and the Blues could be the death blow to the Sabres playoff hopes.
The Blues' Sergei Varlamov, who scored the tying goal minutes later, fetches for the puck under Sabres goalie Martin Biron.
[AP Photo/David Duprey]
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