Archives for February 27, 2002

'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."'