Sabres notebook
Ruutu sinks his teeth into rivalry
There’s been no shortage of teeth to the hostile Buffalo-Ottawa rivalry in recent years, especially when you recall the teams’ playoff matchups in 2006 and 2007 and the infamous brawl during the ’07 regular season.
Now we have the latest bizarre entry. And “teeth” was an intentional choice of words.
Senators forward Jarkko Ruutu clearly bit the gloved right thumb of Buffalo enforcer Andrew Peters — yes, bit — during a scrum near the teams’ benches with 6:47 left in the first period Tuesday in HSBC Arena.
Initially, all anyone noticed was an enraged Peters shaking his hand and screaming at Ruutu as he pulled away from a cluster of players and scrambled to the Buffalo bench.
Replays clearly showed Peters yelling, “he [bleeping] bit me” and the action was frozen on the arena’s HD board as Ruutu sank his teeth on to Peters’ thumb and ripped off the glove.
“I’ve never experienced that before,” said a stunned Peters, whose broken skin was bandaged but not stitched afterward. “I’ve been involved in a few altercations, too. I’ve never had anyone bite me before. I didn’t know that even happened for real. I saw the replay of it and it’s pretty evident he did bite me.
“I have a lot of confidence in the league that they’ll take the proper procedures and go about it the right way, take matters into their hands. That’s what [NHL Senior Executive Vice President] Colin Campbell is for and we’ll see what happens.
“I didn’t know that anybody would ever bite. It’s unfortunate and it’s not part of hockey. The last time I saw that was in boxing with Tyson-Holyfield.”
Facing several different media inquiries, Ruutu repeatedly proclaimed his innocence against the overwhelming video evidence.
“I didn’t bite him,” Ruutu said. “He had his glove in my mouth but I didn’t bite him.”
Pressed again outside the Senators’ room about the replay and Peters’ contention, Ruutu calmly repeated himself by emphasizing every word: “I did not bite him.”
Ottawa coach Craig Hartsburg downplayed it, too.
“[Peters] rubbed his hand in Ruutu’s face about three times,” Hartsburg said. “So I don’t know what the big deal is.”
Ruutu did not get a penalty on the play — but Peters got nailed for unsportsmanlike conduct.
“The ref didn’t see what happened and my reaction kind of threw him off a little bit,” Peters said.
“I’m not going to debate it. I haven’t even looked at it yet,” said Buffalo coach Lindy Ruff. “That’s the most irrelevant part of the game to me. If [Ruutu] wants to bite, go ahead and bite.”
With four meetings still remaining between the teams, it’s unlikely this one will be forgotten anytime soon. Three of the games are at Scotiabank Place in Ottawa. The lone remaining visit by the Sens comes Feb. 11.
“Next game is next game and you can’t start that stuff,” said Peters, whose fight with goalie Ray Emery is one of the enduring images of the ’07 brawl. “We’ve just got to worry about Friday and keeping this streak going and moving up the ladder. We can’t worry about the next time we play Ottawa.”
•••
The Sabres had scored a power- play goal in eight straight games but were 0 for 4 in this one until Thomas Vanek extended the streak on his empty-netter with 26.8 seconds left.
Buffalo penalty-killers went 5 for 5, shutting down an Ottawa power play that was 4 for 13 the last three games.
“We knew they got like 30 percent the last couple games, and I think we gave them shots outside and didn’t give them anything inside,” said defenseman Jaroslav Spacek. “I think that was a big key.”
•••
Defenseman Toni Lydman missed the game with the flu, his first absence since March 2007. Lydman played all 82 games last year. The other scratches were Nathan Paetsch and Maxim Afinogenov.
Matt Ellis’ goal 15 seconds into the first period was Buffalo’s fastest game-opener since Vladimir Tsyplakov scored 10 seconds into a game at Montreal on Nov. 25, 2000. It was Buffalo’s fastest at home since Geoff Sanderson burned Florida after only 11 seconds on Oct. 16, 1998.
Log into MyBuffalo to post a comment
MyBuffalo is the new social network from Buffalo.com. Your MyBuffalo account lets you comment on and rate stories at buffalonews.com. You can also head over to mybuffalo.com to share your blog posts, stories, photos, and videos with the community. Join now or learn more.
Reader comments