Pens Stun Sabres, 4-2

Penguins win third in row, stun Sabres, 4-2
Saturday, January 06, 2007
By Dave Molinari, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Do not take this victory as a sign that the Penguins have arrived.

That's way too much to read into one game, even one as impressive as the Penguins' 4-2 victory against Buffalo at HSBC Arena last night.

But it is perfectly reasonable to view these 60 minutes as evidence of how far this team has come. And what it is capable of doing as it moves toward the second half of the season.

"Tonight was a good test, especially in their building," said Penguins defenseman Ryan Whitney, who scored one goal and set up another. "And we did a good job."

Good? Not really. Good isn't nearly good enough to go on the road and defeat a team that has the best record in the Eastern Conference. That is a serious threat to get through the regular season with the NHL's finest record and should enter the playoffs as one of the favorites to win the Stanley Cup.

There are lots of good teams in the NHL. The Sabres are several notches above them.
"This is a confident group that's grown together for a few years," Penguins coach Michel Therrien said.

The Penguins haven't had their core group intact that long, and they're not going to be on anyone's short list of Cup contenders, but the confidence born of their victories against Carolina and Toronto was impossible to miss, as they never let the Sabres put them on their heels for a significant stretch.

"We might have had a few shifts where they were cycling [the puck in the Penguins' end]," center Sidney Crosby said. "They have a great team and speed, and that's going to happen."

The victory was the Penguins' third in a row and raised their record to 18-15-6. It also ended a streak during which they lost six games to the Sabres and tied another.

While the Sabres had insisted before the game that they were more concerned about the Penguins in general than any individual, they clearly were aware of the challenges posed by Crosby, who had an assist to raise his league-leading points total to 62.

"He's got it all," Sabres coach Lindy Ruff said. "He's a tremendous skater, a tremendous stick-handler. He's good in every area. I don't think the kid has any holes. He's got everything."

Before the game, Ruff was asked whether he would prefer to deal with Crosby and Evgeni Malkin as linemates or centering their own units.

"Watching them play, I'd rather see them on separate lines right now," he said. Laughing, he added, "With both of them out West."

It didn't work out for him, on either count.

Buffalo took a 1-0 lead at 14:44 of the first period, when Derek Roy golfed a shot past goalie Marc-Andre Fleury from the bottom of the right circle. That goal had to be a psychological boost for the Sabres because Fleury had allowed just one goal in his previous two starts.

"Their goaltender, the last couple games, almost looked unbeatable," Ruff said.

So had the Fleury's teammates, which likely is why spotting Buffalo a lead didn't faze them.

"Even when it was, 1-0, them, I don't think we went into a shell at all," Whitney said. "We just battled back."

The Penguins pulled even on a power-play goal by Whitney at 7:26 of the second, as he took a cross-ice feed from Crosby and beat goalie Ryan Miller from near the inner edge of the left circle.

The Sabres countered with a power-play goal of their own at 10:50, after center Paul Gaustad hurled his body into the boards behind the net to stop a clearing attempt by Fleury. The puck caromed off Gaustad and went to Daniel Briere, who threw it in front to Chris Drury and watched him bury a shot behind Fleury.

"My mistake," Fleury said. Perhaps, but even though Drury's goal gave Buffalo a 2-1 lead, it did not deflate the Penguins.

Jordan Staal tied the game again at 13:38, when he flipped a backhander past Miller for his 12th of the season, and Malkin got the winner 2.3 seconds before the intermission, as he hammered a slap shot past Miller from above the right dot for his 19th.

Although the outcome wasn't finalized until Dominic Moore scored into an empty net with 12.7 seconds left, the Penguins never wilted under Buffalo's third-period pressure.

"We had a big effort," Therrien said. "And we deserved to win."

And to be satisfied with how, for at least one night, they measured up against one of the league's elite clubs.

"It was a good test," Crosby said. "We looked at it the right way. We respected them, but we had confidence that we could beat them."

(Dave Molinari can be reached at DWMolinari@Yahoo.com. )