PASabreFan
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Posts posted by PASabreFan
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March 28, 1979
Rick Martin scores the 20th hat trick of his Sabres' career in a 9-2 thumping of the Bruins in Boston Garden.
March 28, 1999
Dixon Ward scores in overtime as the Sabres beat the Penguins in a matinee game in Marine Midland Arena.
March 28, 2003
Taylor Pyatt records the first hat trick of his Sabre career in a 4-1 win over Montreal at HSBC Arena.
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I absolutely agree he was one of the stars. He came off the bench cold and stole the game from the Sabres, as PTS said. I'm trying to look at the bigger picture here instead of fretting about little things that happened. The big concern for me is that Lundqvist is in the Sabres' heads now if the teams meet in the playoffs. That is not a matchup I like, Miller vs. Lundqvist. Plus, the Rangers have this guy named Jagr, and we don't.
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After the way Miller played in the second period as the Sabres scored three unanswered goals, to lay an egg in the third and overtime just drives me batty. Lots to worry about, but for me again the big concern is Miller. I just don't think he's going to be able to hold this defensive train wreck together. We can't clear the zone. These putzes are making me thirsty.
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Outstanding period for Ryan Miller, who stoned Jagr several times. And a great game so far for J.P. Dumont, who is clearly responding to the coach's challenge. Just keep Afinogenov, Roy and Vanek nailed to the bench, and we'll be fine. Man, when Vanek danced in front of the net and lost the puck in the slot... that was scary.
What's with Rangers going to their bench after being called for a penalty? T em up! Oops, wrong sport.
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Yep, things looked OK for awhile... I loved Grier's "foothandling" after he had his stick slashed in half. He almost got an assist off a skate pass! Then he went into the corner and started booting the puck around.
But then... the old bugaboo... getting loosey goosey on the power play. I hope some of you who don't mind shorthanded goals were paying attention. The Sabres give up a two on one break shorthanded, and Dumont has to give a little hook to a Ranger to prevent a goal. Not only does the penalty prevent the Sabres from perhaps scoring another power play goal to go up 2-0, the Rangers tie the game on their own power play, take over momentum in the game and score again a few minutes later to assume the lead. All because of a shorthanded CHANCE against.
Let's go Buffalo!
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March 27, 1980
Danny Gare scores his 50th goal of the season for the second time in his career as the Sabres bomb the Detroit Red Wings 10-1 at the Aud. Gare will finish with 56.
March 27, 2000
In their Stanley Cup final hangover season, the Sabres beat the Hurricanes 5-1 in Carolina for their fourth straight win, brightening their tight playoff hopes.
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March 26, 1979
The Sabres complete the first perfect Western road swing in team history with a 4-2 win at St. Louis, their fourth win in a row. Before that, Buffalo beat Colorado, Vancouver and Los Angeles.
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Miller's slide goes back quite a few games now, so I don't think I and a few other lone voices are overreacting. People can always say Ryan made a lot of good saves and didn't have much of a chance on four of the five goals (how Lorentz doesn't count the fourth goal as a bad goal is beyond me). But as I've said before, the NHLPRGA (National Hockey League Prematurely Retired Goaltender Association) is full of guys who made a lot of good saves except for the ones where they had no chance. :) Bottom line: he's allowing three, four and five goals almost every night, and he's a part of the problem right now. There are a lot of other issues, too, but your success tends to start in goal and emanate out. That softie in the final minute of the second tonight was execrable.
Tom, I guess the crux of the issue is whether the Sabres, looking to the future, let Ryan experience this crucible of pressure, the results (or in Lindy's lexicon, "the pain") be damned, or, thinking they can win now, open up the job to competition again. Any change of philosophy regarding the goaltenders is very unlikely, so it's just message board fodder I guess. In fact, Lindy seems to be trying to prop Ryan up, get him going again -- there's no way that Ruff actually planned to start Miller three games in four nights in late March.
Finally, I can't believe that the media consensus is that the Sabres are playing well, just not getting any breaks. If that's true, I am dismayed. The last two games, I've seen so many things that make me wonder whether this team can have playoff success. Again, I beseech someone on this board to reassure me that this is indeed a slump, that the Sabres are NOT playing well, that these are not the Sabres of the first sixty-some games minus good luck!
PTR, the fourth goal came at the other end, so I will cut you some slack for not seeing that it was a soft goal that went in off of Ryan's glove.
As for missing the playoffs... that's almost mathematically impossible!
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Hey, was that Doug Gilmour coasting back into the Sabres' zone on the Bruins' second goal? You can call it a slump if you want, but when your co captain starts pulling that #%^$#!, you're in deep trouble. The other captain must have known something no one else did. It was a week ago tonight that Briere made his mysterious "lockerroom issues" comment. On a side note, I wonder if a Sabre team has ever lost five games in a week?
Now...someone has to say it. It is time to alternate starts for Miller and Biron and go with the better man in the playoffs? I know, I know, Jim... Miller didn't have a chance!
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Drury has the puck all by himself in the corner to the right of Miller with 3 or 4 seconds left in the period, the Sabres shorthanded. He can write "Wilson" on the puck and have a conversation with it to kill the clock but instead throws it around the boards, right to a Bruin at the point, leading to a close call at the buzzer. WHY? One of my all time hockey pet peeves. It happens all the time.
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Eleven, Ottawa doesn't jump out at me as this unbeatable machine. Add Havlat, Hasek and Chara... maybe they are. And maybe they have different gears and needed only first gear to beat the Sabres last night. But I thought except for the period of time when the Sens scored their goals and for a while after that, the two teams looked pretty even.
Sweet open-ice hit by Kalinin on that Sens' defenseman who cut to the middle on him. Maybe that's the kind of play that will help push Kalinin's game back to the top again?
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March 25, 1992
The Sabres beat the Leafs 5-2 at the Aud for their fifth win in the last seven games.
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Anyway, what a nice goal by Briere. Such basic hockey. Point shot low and on goal. A player in front screening the goalie and deflecting the shot. A teammate crashing the net, keeping his stick on the ice and scoring. So simple. I didn't see a lot of simple plays tonight.
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The NHL vice president tells WGR Radio that the puck was "conclusively" on the line. As I type this, a caller makes the perfect point: if it was conclusive, how did the review take over 5 minutes? It was inconclusive. Period. Maybe a little more likely it was touching the line than not touching it, but still...
Honestly, what else would you expect from the NHL? A skunk can't change its stripes.
As for the game, just too many passes. That stuck out for me. And Ray Emery outplaying Ryan Miller is very troubling. Again, please, someone reassure me that this is not the way this team has played most of the year.
It was great seeing them again after two years, though. When that game came on, I was like Andy Dufresne emerging from the sewer pipe in "The Shawshank Redemption." Air. Water. A clean change of clothes. The Sabres on TV. What more do you need in life?
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OK, I'm finally watching. I had to order the regional Sports Pack to get MSG. I'm in the Sabres local area after all, which was why the game was blacked out on Center Ice the other night. A good break, actually, because now I get to see the Buffalo broadcast every night.
Yikes, someone please tell me this team is just a shell of the team that had everyone so excited. I am dismayed. As I suspected, the Sabres' problems might start in goal. Everyone seemed to think his showing in Ottawa ended Miller's slump, but I don't know. Besides the goals, there was a hard one-timer late in the period that just hit Miller, causing a huge rebound that luckily our D was able to clear. Rick said "huge save," but it really wasn't. I don't think Miller even saw it.
First-blush reaction: this is a defense that is going to get on my nerves, and a forward group that is way too cute for their own good. One of the best scoring chances of the period came when Pyatt just threw the puck to the net from a bad angle and it almost went in off Pominville. We need more ugly goals.
I really hated how this team came out storming, then was so easily deflated by a couple of goals and a Sens' power play. Really reminded me of some of my least favorite Sabre teams of the past.
Someone reassure me. Now. :)
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Yeah, but... that wasn't a game where both teams felt a desperate need to win the game. That game in Ottawa last Saturday was, in effect, a playoff game.
I don't know why I bother reading those wire service previews. From AP:
"The stumbling Buffalo Sabres have had plenty of trouble against the Ottawa Senators this season. Catching them for the Northwest Division title might be equally difficult."
Ah, yes, there's the rub. :: PASabreFan strokes his beard ::
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True. I guess the best way to think about the Sabres-Senators situation is that in the biggest matchup of the season between the teams, Ottawa won, and handily. A win tonight by the Sabres doesn't erase that at all. That big meatball will be hanging around the Sabres' neck if the teams meet in the playoffs... unless, of course, the Sabres beat the Senators three times in a row coming up and steal the division title.
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Some early good news, that freak of a hockey player Chara will not play tomorrow. He's out with a busted hand.
I don't agree that this is a good break for the Sabres, pun intended. It's fortunate if you're just worried about getting the two points, but the points aren't the point right now. The point is to prove that you can beat Ottawa, but without Chara, Ottawa isn't Ottawa, if you know what I mean. Beating a Chara-less Senator team would almost take the lustre off of the win, make it less impressive. "Oh, sure, they beat Ottawa, but Ottawa didn't have Chara that night." Am I making any sense? Probably not.
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March 24, 1973
In Pittsburgh, all three members of the French Connection score, but the biggest goal of the night belongs to Larry Mickey. With Roger Crozier on the bench in favor of the extra attacker, the Buffalo winger tips in a shot with eight seconds left to tie the game at 4 and move the Sabres one point ahead of Detroit for the fourth and final playoff spot in the East.
March 24, 1989
Clint Malarchuk makes an appearance in the Zamboni entrance during the Sabres game with Vancouver at the Aud. He receives a two-minute standing ovation and acknowledgment from the Canuck players, who slapped their sticks on the ice.
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March 23, 1975
The Sabres club the California Golden Seals 9-4 at the Aud to clinch their first Adams Division championship.
March 23, 1989
Clint Malarchuk is released from the hospital, joking at a press conference with his characteristic offbeat humor that doctors had done "a frontal lobotomy through my neck." He also spoke very seriously about his near-death experience. "I thought I was dying then, I really did. I knew it was my jugular vein and I thought I didn't have long to live," he said.
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Pretty good article on the subject... :)
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Clint Malarchuk stands in the Zamboni entrance at Memorial Auditorium and watches as thousands of Sabres' fans ? from the lower golds and the reds below to the upper blues and the oranges above ? get to their feet.
Two nights earlier, 20 feet from the spot where he is now standing, Malarchuk was a dead man, his body's life-force squirting uncontrollably onto the ice.
"I thought I was dying then, I really did. I thought I didn't have long to live."
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John Skakuj was sitting way up in the oranges, the very top section of the Aud, his back almost up against a concrete wall. The 20-year-old security guard from Lockport had been working a lot of very long shifts lately, and the night off was badly needed, even if all he could afford was the cheapest seat in the house. But the cheapest seat happened also to be the best seat in the house: from the oranges, Skakuj had a perfect ? almost dizzying ? view of the Buffalo goal crease below.
Color commentator Mike Robitaille and longtime Voice of the Sabres Ted Darling were working on what had been a routine television broadcast through the opening minutes of the game.
Brian Blessing, a noon sports anchor for Channel 4 in Buffalo, was sitting in the upper golds with his little boy.
There was little drama in the air, and the Aud wasn't close to being sold out for the Wednesday night game with the St. Louis Blues, not exactly a rival that fired up the fans. Only six games were left in the regular season, and the Sabres had clinched a playoff berth.
Buffalo scored an early goal and led 1-0 when Sabres' defenseman Uwe Krupp jumped over the boards as Blues' forward Steve Tuttle turned a wide semicircle in his own zone. Clint Malarchuk nervously shuffled his skates in the goal crease as the play reached center ice.
John Skakuj was paying the popcorn vendor and dropped a handful of coins as he glanced quickly down at the ice as Krupp and Tuttle charged into the Sabre goal crease.
Suddenly, the crowd of 14,000 was roaring as if the Sabres had just scored a goal, and Mike Robitaille was screaming.
"Oh my God, what happened!?"
Brian Blessing said a prayer as nine fans fainted in their seats.
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It was a tough season for starting goaltenders in Buffalo in 1988-89. Tom Barrasso was the number-one goalie to start the season, but he quickly became expendable and was traded to Pittsburgh in November when Daren Puppa started playing out of his mind. Puppa, however, broke his arm on January 27 in a collision at the Aud with the Montreal Canadiens' Mike McPhee and was lost for the season.
Jacques Cloutier couldn't hold on to the starting job either. "Cloutier had played virtually every important moment since the Puppa injury, and it was obvious he was running out of gas," writes Budd Bailey, author of "The History of the Buffalo Sabres."
Cloutier and his defense were both running on empty: they had allowed 38 goals-against in a span of seven games. General Manager Gerry Meehan had to make a trade for some help in goal.
On March 6, Clint Malarchuk became the embodiment of that help. Meehan traded defenseman Calle Johansson and a second-round pick in 1989 (Byron Dafoe) to the Washington Capitals for Malarchuk, defenseman Grant Ledyard and a sixth-round pick in 1991 (Brian Holzinger). Malarchuk, a fourth-round pick of the Quebec Nordiques in 1981, had become a victim of a numbers game in Washington, which had both Pete Peeters and Don Beaupre in goal.
Like traded players often do, Malarchuk made an immediate splash with his new team.
He shut out the New York Rangers in Madison Square Garden in his Sabre debut on March 8 and won three of his first five starts in goal. His goals-against average and his save percentage were equally impressive.
Clint Malarchuk had been a Buffalo Sabre for only 16 days when his life almost ended at 140 Main Street in Buffalo, New York on March 22, 1989.
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Uwe Krupp and Steve Tuttle collided violently with Clint Malarchuk in the goal crease, and Tuttle's skate came up and caught the goaltender on the side of the neck. At first, there was little concern and just a little blood, but quickly the severity of Malarchuk's injury became all too apparent.
"After the collision I remember Clint on his hands and knees to the left of the crease," John Skakuj, now a police officer in Rochester, remembers. "I could see that he was bleeding and when he took his mask off you could tell that it was his jugular vein that was cut. The blood poured onto the ice in spurts with every beat of his heart."
A six-inch gash had been opened up in the largest vein in Malarchuk's body, and a puddle of blood filled the goal crease, seeping outward in an ever-enlarging circle.
"Oh! Look at the blood! Take the... oh man! That is the... Please take the camera off and don't even bring it over there. Please! Just keep it away!" shouted Robitaille. "Oh terrible! Oh my God, what happened!?"
"Oh my God! Oh Jesus!" said a breathless Darling, talking right over his partner.
The frightening scene ? something out of a horror film and not a hockey game ? stunned the fans at the Aud.
"The crowd seemed to panic and everyone was screaming in disbelief," says Skakuj. "It put chills through my spine because we were all watching this guy die in front of us and there was nothing that we could do about it."
Sabre John Tucker, on the ice when the accident occurred, felt the same helplessness.
"When he took his mask off, it was pretty shocking and disruptive. I had never seen anything like that in hockey," said Tucker. "It was a helpless feeling to be standing there and not know what to do. I had to skate away."
Clint Malarchuk was 27 years old. Not one of the terrified spectators gave him a snowball's chance in hell of seeing 28.
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"Pizza (Sabres' trainer Jim Pizzutelli) was gone in a flash with the towel," Sabres' coach Ted Sator said the next day. Pizzutelli took long, sliding steps on the ice to get to Malarchuk in record time and press that towel against the gushing wound and staunch the flow of blood. Someone screamed out for a stretcher.
"No way!" Malarchuk insisted, instead calmly skating off the ice through the nearby doorway behind the Buffalo net.
At the Aud, like most older buildings, the players exited the playing surface at one end of the ice, not behind the bench like they do at many modern venues like HSBC Arena. Malarchuk was lucky to be at the lockerroom end of the Aud in the first period.
"I thank God it didn't happen at the other end of the ice," said Sator.
In the lockerroom, team doctor Peter James took over Malarchuk's care, and the bleeding was controlled. Malarchuk was rushed by ambulance to Buffalo General Hospital.
"Can you have me back for the third period?" Malarchuk asked a paramedic. Laughter filled the speeding ambulance.
Skakuj felt lightheaded and nauseous and had to take a short walk to clear his head. He was not alone. Three fans complained of chest pain, nine fainted and countless others were, like Skakuj, sick to their stomachs.
"Usually things like that don't bother me, but I was overwhelmed. For the rest of the game, everyone seemed to be in a fog because I'm sure Clint's welfare was on their minds," Skakuj recalls.
The game was finished in a stunned silence, the Auditorium a literal Mausoleum. Jacques Cloutier replaced Malarchuk in goal after attendants shoveled the frozen blood off the ice. The Blues went on to win the game 2-1, but no one really cared.
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At Buffalo General Hospital, Malarchuk underwent surgery to repair his severed jugular vein. After the surgery, doctors offered a prognosis for a full recovery. Remarkably, Malarchuk was released from the hospital the next afternoon but not before he spoke to the media with great emotion and offbeat humor about his near-death experience.
"As my heart would beat, it would squirt. I thought I was dying then, I really did. I knew it was my jugular vein and I thought I didn't have long to live," he remembered.
Malarchuk said he surprised himself by remaining so calm throughout the whole ordeal.
"I didn't go into any real shock. I think maybe if I had any shock, it was this morning," he told the assembled press. "I'm not going off on a stretcher, I never will. The day I go off on a stretcher, they're going to have to make funeral arrangements. I'm proud of that fact that I got off the ice on my own power."
The man who would become well known in Buffalo for his sense of humor and his practical jokes broke the tension when he was asked to explain the medical procedure that he had undergone the night before.
"I think they just did like a frontal lobotomy through my neck."
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In the hours after the injury, Buffalo reacted like a true City of Good Neighbors. Malarchuk was one of the city's newest neighbors, but the Sabres were still deluged with flowers, get-well cards and phone calls. An elderly couple in South Buffalo stayed up all night praying for the goaltender, and a boy in Montana refused to go to school until his mother called the Sabres' office the next morning and found out that the goaltender was OK.
On March 24, two days after the incident, the fans could finally release some of their pent-up concern. Malarchuk visited the Aud for some medical treatment and a visit with his teammates before their game with the Vancouver Canucks. Malarchuk was hanging around the building, and someone convinced him to make an appearance at ice level. During a break in the action, Malarchuk walked to the Zamboni entrance.
Realizing Malarchuk was there, the crowd got to its feet for the most emotional standing ovation in the history of the Buffalo Sabres, a two-minute outpouring of amazement, relief and joy.
Malarchuk missed the next five games of the regular season but returned to the same goal crease where the injury occurred for the final few minutes of the Sabres' season-finale at the Aud on April 2, a 4-2 win over his former team, the Quebec Nordiques. After some mop-up duty ? no pun intended ? Malarchuk was congratulated by players on both teams for his remarkable recovery.
Then, in game two of the opening round of the playoffs against the Boston Bruins, Malarchuk was back in an even bigger way. Coach Ted Sator's controversial move ? Jacques Cloutier had shut out the Bruins in game one ? backfired in a 5-3 Boston victory that evened the series. The Bruins went on to eliminate Malarchuk and the Sabres in six games.
Malarchuk played three more seasons in Buffalo, never really winning the starting job and finishing with a .500 record and a 3.40 goals-against average in his 102 games played in a Sabre sweater. His statistics are not what everyone will always remember about Clint Malarchuk.
After his playing days in Western New York ended, Malarchuk headed west for the 1992-93 season. He played 27 games with the San Diego Gulls of the International Hockey League then worked his way back east, but only as far as Las Vegas, for five seasons with the IHL's Las Vegas Thunder.
Malarchuk and his wife Christy set up residence on their Canuck Ranch in Vegas and raised emus ? flightless, fast-running Australian birds similar to an ostrich ? and three kids, Kelli, Jed and Dallyn.
From 1993-1995, he played so brilliantly in goal for the Thunder that he ended up becoming the first player in that organization to have his number retired. His number 30 ? the same one he wore in Buffalo on that fateful night in March 1989 ? hangs above the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas.
When the Thunder found itself without a backup goaltender in the 1996-97 season, Malarchuk ? then the team's assistant general manager and assistant coach ? came out of retirement, put the pads back on and even entered a game in a shootout situation. Malarchuk stopped four shooters, and the Thunder won.
It was sudden death in the nets, but Clint Malarchuk didn't flinch. He had been there before.
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"It was sickening," said Barry Smith, an assistant coach for the Sabres at the time of the injury and now a Detroit Red Wing associate coach. "It's a very, very hard thing to get over. I saw it a lot in flashbacks. But you know what? I'm surprised it doesn't happen more often."
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In October 1995, in an exhibition game between Swedish hockey teams Brynas and Mora, Bengt Akerblom's neck was slashed by Mora player Andreas Olsson's skate in a freak accident. By the time Akerblom reached the hospital, he had lost too much blood and died.
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Rock, I just figured out who the guy is in your avatar on the left. Rod Brind'amour!
Ten goals against in a row for the Sabres? Aieeee.
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Corp... 11:59 or 14:59? Fifteen minutes of fame draining away. Oh, I'm so dramatic.
Serenity now!
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Thanks Rock, but I get the same "not available" message. I get the sinking feeling I'm in MSG territory or something, even though I'm in PA and my cable system doesn't offer it. Is that how it works? Can people in Buffalo get the Sabres games on DirecTV? You could fry an egg on my head right now.
This Day in Sabres History :: March 29
in This Day in Sabres History
Posted
March 29, 1986
The Sabres' hopes of a 12th straight appearance in the Stanley Cup playoffs start to unravel after a 2-1 loss in Boston.
March 29, 2003
The Sabres beat the Hurricanes on the road 3-1 for their fourth straight win.