Sabres survive shootout

April 2, 2008   ·   Derek Felix   ·   Jump to comments

 

If you were a Buffalo Sabre fan last night, the last place you wanted to be was in a shootout against the loathed Maple Leafs with your team’s season hanging by a thread. Or maybe I should say goalpost since there were a couple in the OT and the skill competition before Maxim Afinogenov kept his team’s feint playoff hopes alive with a wonderful two deke classic forehand finish in Round Six- allowing the Sabres to dream a little with a topsy turvy 4-3 comeback road win in Toronto.

“I had a couple of plans in my mind,” the skilled Russian said after bailing his desperate team out improving them to just 4-9 in shootouts this season. “But that was the move I wanted to make.”

“That was an important goal. … And the move was one of his best,” added Buffalo coach Lindy Ruff who along with his club will be hoping for lots of help tonight from New Jersey (hosts Boston) and Pittsburgh (hosts Flyers). They’ll be pulling hard for the Devils and Penguins to win in regulation. Though a point for the two teams in front doesn’t eliminate the Sabres just yet.

The formula is quite simple: Win their final two games at Montreal tomorrow and Boston Saturday in regulation and get help to possibly allow an improbable shootout win a la the Islanders last year around the same time to propel them into a third consecutive postseason.

“We’re still alive,” Afinogenov pointed out despite a career low 10 goals and club worst minus-14 rating.

“Maybe the other teams will be a little shaken, and hopefully it’ll be good for us.“

If karma is on their side and it certainly seemed to be as Leafs’ legendary broadcaster Harry Neale noted of, “lady luck being on their side” after a couple of near misses by Toronto which included a Tomas Kaberle laser in OT which had Ryan Miller beaten if not for his best friend, the crossbar.

In particular, Miller came up large denying a pointblank Leafs’ chance which would’ve ended his team’s season early in overtime before overcoming nerves in the shootout by stopping the last five Toronto shots after getting abused by Kaberle in Round One before teammate Ales Kotalik had his back with a smooth backhand deke finish against rare Toronto starter Andrew Raycroft.

“We absolutely needed it, so I was happy to come through,” the winning Buffalo starting netminder stated after finishing with 19 saves. “Maybe it’s a starting point, that we can feel like we can play with a little more pressure on us.”

It might not have gotten to that point if Thomas Vanek hadn’t scored his 33rd in front on the power play responding almost immediately to a nice Leafs’ go-ahead tally off the stick of Alex Steen setup by some splendid defensive work by rookie call-up defender Anton Stralman.

Instead, Vanek’s tying power play marker with 5:21 left in regulation allowed them to get at least one point before needing that second one to keep their season alive. That it even required a shootout was kind of sad. Handed a four-on-three on a bogus crosscheck love tap with an exasperated Pavel Kubina in the box, the Sabres proceeded to do their best Ranger impersonation passing the puck around the perimeter as if it were a game of hot potato.

If my best friend Brian Sanborn had seen this which luckily he didn’t cause he lives in Long Beach, Cali, he might’ve gone over the edge. They showed little urgency. You’d think they would have stuck with what was working such as the three simple passes they made on the prior one before a seeing eye shot found Vanek’s stick. That’s the NHL these days where logic even on power plays never seems to apply.

I loved Neale’s call before the power play as he talked about “perhaps lady luck is really on the Sabres’ side.”

And boy if he sounded a little irked, he wasn’t alone. You just don’t make such weak calls. The positioning of the ref who made it was also abominable as he was away from the play calling it from the top of the blueline. Yikes.

Glad it didn’t end that way as it didn’t deserve to. For the Sabres, they can just be happy to finally have some luck go their way in the shootout. Just maybe they’ll get a whole lot more tonight.

Hopefully for poor Sabre fans like Sanborn, they will keep hope alive. Where’s Reverend Al Sharpton when you need him?