Sabres notebook
Spacek stages his own block party
Defenseman Jaroslav Spacek got the Buffalo Sabres’ offense going Thursday with the game’s first goal. But when he plied his real trade in the third period, it clinched a crucial Buffalo victory.
Playing with Toni Lydman for the entire 67-second span that saw the Sabres two men short, Spacek blocked back-to-back shots from Florida defenseman Jay Bouwmeester to preserve the Sabres’ one-goal lead in what turned into an eventual 3-1 victory over the Panthers.
“It’s just a desperation time,” Spacek said. “You had to play tight together. I knew Bouwmeester would try to have the big shot, the one-timer. I just wanted to stay in the lane and block what I could. They didn’t get much down low either because Toni took those lanes away.”
Spacek was crouched low to the ice as he attacked the right point, and Bouwmeester, Florida’s All-Star, fired the puck into him twice in a row.
“I tried to be closer to him and take the low part away,” Spacek said. “It’s tougher to see and he hit me once in the pads and once in the laces. I was just trying to take away as much space as I could.”
“That was a momentum swing for us,” said coach Lindy Ruff. “We got a couple big blocks, a couple big saves. I thought the desperation was good and that can change the complexion of the game right there.”
Spacek scored his eighth goal of the season just 3:04 into the first period, using a quick snap shot to convert a Jason Pominville feed. It was his eighth goal of the season— but sixth since Feb. 6.
Spacek certainly liked Pominville’s pass but was even happier to see the help the Buffalo forwards provided the defense.
“We had a lot of guys coming back,” Spacek said. “They always had to beat two or three guys to get to us. . . . We got great help from the forwards. That’s what the game was all about—big defense and wait for a mistake.”
•••
Florida winger Richard Zednik skated 20 minutes, 29 seconds— the most of any Panthers forward— in his first visit to the arena in more than 13 months. The last time he was here, of course, was hardly routine.
In the building for the first time since his near-fatal neck injury suffered when he was cut by a teammate’s skate, Zednik was the first Panther on the ice for the team’s pregame morning workout. He immediately headed to the corner where the accident occurred and made a couple of quick circles.
His teammates, many of whom were smiling, then followed Zednik on to the ice and began their practice.
“I was trying not to think about [the accident],” Zednik said afterward. “I want it to be like any other game. It’s a big game for us. I want to just focus on hockey.”
Pressed about his initial gesture on to the ice, Zednik smiled and said, “I was just trying my skates. That’s all.”
Zednik suffered a severed carotid artery and needed emergency surgery to save his life when he was cut by the skate of ex-teammate Olli Jokinen in the third period of the game here on Feb. 10, 2008.
Despite all the extra attention, Zednik insisted he was trying to treat the game like any other.
“I don’t think it will be different except maybe for you guys coming here,” he said as reporters encircled his locker. “For me, it’s like every other arena. I know what happened but I’m not trying to think about it. It was so quick with everything happening. I remember every step, and I was lucky.”
•••
Pominville’s first-period assist was his 34th of the season, two shy of Derek Roy’s team-leading total of 36. . . . The Sabres have outscored their opponents, 67-49, in the first period this season. But the combined total of the second, third and overtime stanzas has the opponents on top, 136-126. . . . The Sabres scratched Teppo Numminen, Nathan Paetsch, Clarke MacArthur, Matt Ellis and Andrew Peters.
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