Archives for February 2002

'The Sabres now play 24 games over the next 46 days. Of those 24 games, Buffalo will play 17 against opponets currently over .500, six against division leaders, nine against non-playoff teams and 12 on the road.'

'When he does play, Hamel generally sees little ice time as a member of the fourth line.'

'Warrener, a native of Shaunavon, Sask., skated a Canadian flag around the rink partly out of pride and partly to laud it over his non-Canadian teammates, especially Tim Connolly and Erik Rasmussen, the two Sabres from the U.S.'

'The Sabres had several more scoring chances and 12 more shots than the Thrashers, but they had trouble with goalie Ivan Hnilicka, who backed up Dominik Hasek for the Czech Republic in the Olympics.'

'The 18-year-old raced down the left side, used Dany Heatley as a decoy on a developing two-on-one and blistered a low shot from the faceoff circle past goalie Martin Biron to put the Thrashers ahead at 16:54.'

'"This hurts a lot," Buffalo coach Lindy Ruff said. "There's nothing to be happy about. We didn't win the game and that's the bottom line. You win any way you can and we didn't get the job done."'

'"Every game is a do-or-die, must win right now," Sabres left wing Erik Rasmussen said. "It's something we shouldn't even have to talk about. Every game we go into, it's going to be 'we have to win, we have to win.' If we don't start winning early on, we're going to find ourselves 15-to-20 points out and then we're done, so every game's a must win."'

'The Sabres, with 25 games over the next 47 days, must displace three teams to climb into the Eastern Conference's eighth and final playoff slot. They enter tonight's game 23-26-7-1, seven points behind the eighth-place New York Rangers.'

'"Being removed from Canada you kind of lose how much it really means," Ruff said. "And then you turn on the Canadian broadcasting and watch the streets of Toronto and Vancouver. . . . It really is something big. It took 50 years, but they've done it again. For Canada, I don't think there's anything bigger for them."'

'Five of their past six games have reached OT with a 2-2 score.'