Satan Leads Sabres Over Caps 3-0

March 1, 1998 / 12:00 AM EST / CBS/AP

A decent night's sleep did worlds of good for Dominik Hasek. The slumping Washington Capitals, on the other hand, couldn't rouse themselves from a nightmarish stretch against the Buffalo Sabres' gold medal goalie.

Miroslav Satan broke out of a scoring drought with three goals and Hasek made 36 saves for his career-high eighth shutout of the season as Buffalo extended its unbeaten streak to 12 games with a 3-0 triumph Sunday over the Capitals.

Hasek, who backstopped the Czech Republic to the gold medal in the Nagano Olympics, is now tied with Dallas goalie Ed Belfour for the league lead in shutouts. Buffalo, 6-0-6 in its last 12 games, has the longest unbeaten streak in the NHL this season.

But the Sabres goalie has had trouble adjusting his body clock following the Olympics - until he slept for 12 hours Saturday night.

"The Olympics were great, but it's over already," said Hasek, who bettered his career-high of seven shutouts in 1993-94."I'm back in Buffalo and ready to do my job. ... With the time changes, I was a little tired. But I played well, so I'm pleased with my performance."

Satan, who hadn't had a goal since Dec. 30, provided all the offense for the Sabres, who have not lost since dropping a 3-0 decision in Philadelphia on Jan. 20. Since that loss, Buffalo has outscored its opponents 38-21.

"We're playing much, much better hockey now," Satan said. "The main reason is because of Dominik, and because of the way he's playing, our whole defense and offense is playing much better."

The three-goal performance gave Satan a team-high 20 goals for the season, one more than defenseman Alexei Zhitnik.

Washington is winless in six games, going 0-5-1 in that span, and has lost four straight. The Capitals, who suffered their fifth shutout of the season, have dropped four consecutive games at MCI Center.

"It's not easy to (score) when you're playing one of the best (goalies) in the world," said Capitals defenseman Sergei Gonchar."What do you do? .... You've got to get someone in front of the goal. We put a lot of shots on him, but we didn't always have somebody there for the rebounds."

For the fourth straight game, Washington fell behind by two goals. This time, the Caps couldn't recover against Hasek.

Buffalo turned a tripping penalty against Washington's Kelly Miller into a 1-0 lead 2:51 into the game. Satan scored his first goal by whacking his own rebound past Capitals goalie Olie Kolzig at the right side of the crease on the power play.

Hasek - who hasn't had a shutout since a 3-0 whitewashing of Ottawa on Dec. 31 - stopped all 15 of Washington's second-period shots. But two saves he made in the opening five minutes of the period deflated the Capitals, who outshot the Sabres 36-20 for the game.

Fifty-four secods into the period, he blocked Peter Bondra's wrist shot in traffic in front of the goal. Four minutes later, he gloved a rising slap shot from the right point by Yogi Sjevkovsky.

Satan struck again 2:55 into the third period, beating Caps defenseman Brendan Witt to give the Sabres a 2-0 edge.

Tightly guarded by Witt during a rush started by Hasek, Satan pulled up at the inside portion of the right circle and surprised Kolzig with a quick wrist shot that found the upper right corner of the net.
Satan added an empty-net insurance goal with 15 seconds left.