Panthers claw past Sabres

November 18, 2009   ·   Derek Felix   ·   Jump to comments

Perhaps the Sabres were due for a letdown. In front of their home fans, they were clawed by the Panthers literally, 6-2 at HSBC Arena earlier tonight, making it only the fifth regulation defeat in 18 games this season. The six goals were the most they allowed so far.

For whatever reason, Lindy Ruff’s club was out of sorts all game but it didn’t really rear its ugly head till the closing minutes when Florida undressed them for three goals in a 62 second span to finish off a game they controlled.

“A lot of the mistakes are on our own shoulders,” a disappointed Ruff concluded of the lethargic effort that saw his club guilty of 25 giveaways. Very uncharacteristic. Though if you would’ve asked our lurking Buffalo contingent, they’d have claimed otherwise, boldly predicting a Sabre loss. What else is new? “We turned some pucks over, and had some guys who didn’t stop and compete on pucks.”

It started out alright with Drew Stafford slamming home his sixth by going upstairs on Tomas Vokoun.  Thomas Vanek and Tim Connolly netted assists. But late in the opening stanza, Michal Frolik scored the first of two ending an 11-game drought to tie with 1:39 left.

Carrying momentum into the second, it didn’t take long for the Panthers to surge ahead when just 81 seconds in, Stephen Weiss found an odd way to score. After Ryan Miller thwarted Nathan Horton, the puck caromed off an attacking Weiss’ stomach and in for an unassisted goal. Playing with a lead, the Cats really clawed down keeping Buffalo to the outside. Even when they got a rare chance on the power play, it was hard to get through Florida’s tight box which limited options. Even if Vokoun stopped all 10 shots in the period, none were difficult.

“They just played boring until they got a lead and then they played more boring,” Miller frustratingly admitted. “You have to be willing to get it deep and just be boring yourself. It was one of those nights where everything we seem to do kind of went against us.”

Instead, his teammates forced the issue resulting in zilch. There was no flow to their game and the consistent forecheck which has become a Buffalo staple also was missing. Not surprisingly, Cory Stillman increased to 3-1 netting his sixth with 9:10 remaining. All looked well for the opponent who remained disciplined throughout to win for the sixth time in nine.

However, the Sabres crawled within one when Clarke MacArthur rebounded home a Vanek shot that caromed off Keith Ballard for a power play goal with 5:43 to go. After struggling to get much done even drawing boos from flustered fans, an attacking Craig Rivet finally set it up by skating around the net, passing to Vanek, whose rebound went right to MacArthur for a gimme. But with the crowd back in it, a needless Patrick Kaleta interference minor killed any hopes of a comeback when he didn’t make any attempt to go for the puck, instead hitting Radek Dvorak to get nabbed.

It only took 17 seconds for Florida to make him pay when off a faceoff win, an innocent looking Bryan McCabe left point shot caromed off a Sabre and Frolik past Miller, restoring a 4-2 lead with just 2:02 left, sending quite many to the exits. It didn’t take long for that to continue when 14 ticks later with Miller on the bench, Rotislav Olesz hit the open net for 5-2.

Sadly, the Panthers weren’t finished thanks to Olesz outworking two Buffalo defenders and then easily setting up one-time Sabre Dominic Moore on the doorstep for his first in Florida colors, making it a four-goal cushion with a minute to go. A pleased Moore collected the puck.

“That last game against them we had a terrible start, and we were out of the game in the first period,” explained Vokoun, who finished with 26 stops, improving to 5-1-1 in his last seven starts.

“I think right now we’re playing much better as a team and guys are realizing what we need to do to win. Before, a lot of guys were doing their own thing, and you can’t win in this league by doing that.”

“We’ve really cleaned up our defensive game by leaps and bounds over the last dozen games,” pleased coach Peter DeBoer added. “We couldn’t have been any worse in our first six or seven games of the season.”

As for Buffalo, who fell to 12-5-1 and still four points up in the Northeast, it’s back to work. Figure there to be an intense practice before a back-to-back with Friday Boston coming in and then headed to Ottawa for a Hockey Night In Canada match-up.

BONY 3 Stars:

3rd Star-Dominic Moore, Fla (goal, assist, 2 SOG, game best 4 blocked shots, 7-4 draws, +2 in 14:21)

2nd Star-Keith Ballard, Fla (3 assists, SOG, 3 hits, 3 blocked shots, +2 in 25:08)

1st Star-Michal Frolik, Fla (2 goals-5, 6, 4 SOG, +1 in 14:15)