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 Sabres return home facing elimination
Posted: Friday June 18, 1999 12:48 AM
DALLAS (AP) -- If the Buffalo Sabres are going to win the Stanley Cup, they'll have to do it the hard way. A 2-0 loss to the Dallas Stars Thursday night put the Sabres on the brink of elimination for the first time this postseason. Buffalo trails 3-2 in the best-of-7 series with Game 6 at home Saturday night. "We're a confident team in our building," Buffalo coach Lindy Ruff said. "Our players believe they'll be back here for Game 7." Center Brian Holzinger pointed out that the Sabres were down 2-1 the last time the series moved to the Marine Midland Arena. Buffalo is 8-1 there this postseason. "We responded once before and we'll respond once more," Holzinger said. "I think we're upbeat." Only three of 15 teams which have lost Game 5 of a tied finals have rebounded to win the championship, none since the 1971 Montreal Canadiens. "We can't be afraid to be the aggressor," captain Michael Peca said. "We've got to take chances. We can't sit back and be afraid to lose." The Sabres know they have a chance because every game this series has been so close. Goalie Dominik Hasek kept them within one shot of tying the game until Pat Verbeek's goal with 4:39 left put the Stars up by two for only the second time this series. The other time was the final 26 seconds of Game 3. "A bounce here, a bounce there -- the margin of error is very small," Buffalo center Curtis Brown said. Buffalo had chances early as Dallas committed many of the same mistakes it made in the Sabres' 2-1 victory in Game 4. But the Sabres rarely challenged Stars goaltender Ed Belfour -- and when they did, he was sharp. Jay McKee and Geoff Sanderson each got good looks as they were flying across open ice, but Belfour saw the shots all the way and caught both. Buffalo created traffic in front of Belfour with about six minutes left, but didn't have a player in the right place at the right time. One shot deflected just wide of the post, and Belfour went behind the net to make a save when the puck came off the boards. Shortly thereafter, he let a rebound squirt into the zone but he dove on it before any Sabres arrived. "In the third period, we let it all hang out," Ruff said. "We weren't generating a lot of quality chances, but we did have a couple of truly good ones." The Sabres trailed 1-0 early in the second period on a power-play goal by Darryl Sydor. Buffalo had overcome a similar deficit in Game 1 when Dallas tried playing keep-away to protect its lead. The Stars didn't make that mistake this time and the Sabres weren't able to slow their aggressiveness. "We came out really good in the first period, they took it to us for a while in the second and in the third they must've iced it 10-12 times to relieve pressure," Ruff said. Buffalo had just two power plays in the game, one in each of the first two periods. The Sabres didn't get off a shot on the second; they haven't scored on their last 16 tries with the man advantage. The emotions of the game -- and series -- spilled over several times in the final minutes, beginning when a fan threw a foil Stanley Cup into the Sabres bench following Verbeek's goal with 4:39 left. Soon after, Ruff and Stars coach Ken Hitchcock shouted at each other and the game ended with Buffalo's Rhett Warrener and Dallas' Derian Hatcher tangling on the ice as time expired. Each was assessed a roughing penalty. Warrener had his right ankle put in a cast for precautionary reasons. He'll be re-examined in Buffalo early Friday. Buffalo had not been shut out this postseason. The Sabres are 8-2 in one-goal games, with the losses coming to the Stars in Games 3 and 5. The only other times Buffalo has trailed a series in the playoffs was when Boston led 1-0 in the second round and the 2-1 hole to Dallas. "I still think this is going to be a seven-game series," enforcer Rob Ray said.
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