Sabres in the dumps after losing third straight
By Rick Anderson
October 31, 2001

The Sabres center Curtis Brown tries to get the puck from Coyotes defenseman Paul Mara in third period action. The Sabres lost their third straight, 3-2 to Phoenix.

[AP Photo/David Duprey]

The Buffalo Sabres are frittering away golden opportunities. Playing 9 games at home in October, the Sabres, the Sabres have lost 4 of those against teams they should have beaten. Tuesday night, the Sabres ended their October schedule on a pretty frightening note, as they blew a 2-1 lead in the third period to lose to the Phoenix Coyotes 3-2. It was their third straight loss, putting them at 5-6-1-1.

Losing to such teams as Atlanta, Columbus, Montreal and Phoenix at home, the Sabres have dug themselves a hole that will be difficult to climb out of by the end of April. These are the games the Sabres have to win. Friday they play another team at home that they should beat, the Tampa Bay Lightning. The problem is that the Sabres always play down to the level of the weaker competition.

Martin Biron played his second straight subpar game. All three goals scored on him were quite stoppable. The winning goal came when Claude Lemieux was allowed to hack away at Biron three times as Chris Gratton stood withing in striking distance of Lemieux. With Gratton having the best seat in the house, Lemieux took a pass by Sergei Berezin and Biron stopped it. With the puck not being smothered by Biron, Lemieux kept on hammering away as Gratton seemed to be in a trance. Finally, Lemieux was able to poke the puck out of Biron's grasp and into the net at the halfway mark of the final period.

Gratton, who has not played anywhere up to potential the past few games, has no excuse for not taking Lemieux out of the play. Allow someone all the time in the world to hack away at the puck and eventually he is going to slam it home.

Even Sabres coach Lindy Ruff thought that Gratton should have leveled Lemieux.

"He should have been laid right out," said Ruff.

Sabres can't hold lead

The Sabres opened the scoring early in the game when Maxim Afinogenov was able to get a shot off right after receiving a great pass from Jason Woolley. The puck got past Coyotes' goalie Sean Burke and the Sabres were up 1-0 3:26 into the first period.

Six minutes later, Biron made one of his many mistakes. He went behind the net to pick up a loose puck and sent it to the left boards, right onto the stick of Sergei Berezin, who saw Shane Doan cruising out in front. Berezin sent Doan a perfect pass and Biron had to dive back into the crease area to stop the sudden shot. The rebound came right out to Daniel Briere, who was Johnny on the spot and fired it into the open corner to tie the game.

Buffalo took the lead once again when Curtis Brown ripped a shot from the top of the right faceoff circle that got past Burke. The Sabres would take that lead into the third period.

The Coyotes would tie the score on a shot that Biron saw all the way.

Briere fed Doan the puck at the point and Doan's long shot just breezed past Biron's right arm. Biron claims that he was not screened on the play. If that is so, then there is no excuse of not stopping that one.

With the Sabres goaltending suddenly going south, the Sabres may have to call up Mika Noronen from Rochester. Bob Essensa is not the answer in goal and now Biron is floundering in the crease.

As for the Sabres scorers, they are following the trait they have displayed the past few years. Goals are always hard to come by and they used to have Dominik Hasek to depend on to keep the scores low. Now that he is gone, Biron needs to step it up and keep the opposition from scoring more than two goals. He was doing that at the beginning of the month, but now costly mistakes are hurting the Sabres big time.

Sabres Talk

The Sabres have got to right their ship immediately if they don't want to have to battle back just to make the playoffs like they did two years ago.

"It's desperation (time)," said Sabres captain Stu Barnes. "It's realizing the importance of each of these games. It's winning battles. We've got to find a way to win the game in the third period."

"Nobody should accept losing, not in the fashion we lost," fumed Ruff in his post game conference. "We're obviously giving up goals to lose hockey games."

Last year, when the Sabres were leading after two periods, they usually would come out on top. Not this season so far.

"We've lost more games in the third period than we did all of last year," Ruff pointed out "It's not like we gave up a bundle of opportunities, but the opportunities we've given up have been goals."

"Not acceptable," Ruff continued to blast away. "I'm not going to stand here and talk about chances, and I'm not going to stand here and talk about not giving up a lot of shots. The bottom line is we lost. That's not good enough."

Biron was ready to do a self-analysis.

"I'm going to have to look at my game and see what happens in the third period," Biron analyzed. "Am I trying too much to create things around the net? Am I not trying enough? Am I being lazy? Am I where I should be all the time? It's like everybody else in here: We have to do our homework and see where it's not working."

The Sabres gave the Coyotes a shot in the arm full of confidence Tuesday by letting them off the hook and right back into the game.

"We're trying to establish an identity, and part of that identity is being a good road team," said Coyotes coach Bob Francis. "This is part of the maturation process for us. We're learning stuff about ourselves as we go along."

Lemieux has been around the block and it felt good to him to score the winner against the Sabres.

"Some of these young guys are playing great right now and they're doing what they can," articulated Lemieux. "There'll be times when things may not go as well, and that's when you really have to rally the troops, stick together and lead by example."

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