The beginning of the Hasek era in Buffalo started with their surprising success in 1997
The Buffalo Sabres returned to the playoffs in 1997 under head coach Ted Nolan, mostly on the back of goalie Dominik Hasek, who was awarded the Hart Trophy with a 37-20-10 record, and 2.27 GAA, but the club did not have Hasek for most of post-season due to injury, clashes with Nolan, and a suspension for attacking a reporter. Buffalo defeated Ottawa in seven games in the first round before being eliminated by Philadelphia in the second round.
The Legend of the White Buffalo is gathering steam.
So, too, are the Buffalo Sabres.
The NHL is at the three-quarter pole of the NHL regular season and the 3019-10 Sabres were where no one expected. First place in the Northeast Division, ahead of the Pittsburgh Penguins, tied for second place in the Eastern Conference, and tied for third place overall, riding a 10-game unbeaten streak (5-0-5) at a time of the year when pretenders are separated from contenders.
And they have done it all without their marquee player, Pat LaFontaine, who has missed most of the season because of multiple concussions.
Dominik Hasek just keeps stopping the puck. Matthew Barnaby can’t decide whether to beat up the opposition or beat it with a goal. No such dilemmas for Rob Ray, Brad May, and Bob Boughner. Mike Peca is emerging as a strong two-way center, just what the Vancouver Canucks could use right about now.
And then there is Ted Nolan, who thinks not a moment about the very real possibility of being coach of the year, but endlessly wonders what tact he’ll use to inspire his Sabres tomorrow. Will it be the practical approach? Play hard or you don’t play. Or will the 38-year-old native Ojibway who grew up on the Garden River Reserve just east of Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., invoke his spiritual side, introduce his players to the mystical wonders of “sweetgrass, sage and what you have” and pay homage to the Legend of the White Buffalo.
The White Buffalo looks down on Nolan at the Marine Midland Arena. Actually, the White Buffalo is an illustration on a native greeting card posted on the wall of Nolan’s office. The congratulatory card was signed by the native chiefs of Canada and presented to Nolan when he was named head coach of the Sabres before last season.
The native prophecy is that when a White Buffalo is bom, there will follow years of good fortune. Lo and behold, the Sabres changed their uniforms in the off-season, going from blue and yellow to white, black and red, with a raging white buffalo adorning the front.
“You have a native coaching the team that wears the White Buffalo,” Nolan said. “The chiefs liked that. Could be significant, eh? Actually, there was a real White Buffalo bom recently, in Wisconsin I think. I’m told more than 175,000 people have been to see it.”
A skeptic might suggest the Sabres’ good fortune has more to do with the Legend of the Czech Goalie than any native lore. Nolan wouldn’t necessarily argue the point, though he’s not liable to discount any point of his native heritage.
“No question, Dominik is our driving force,” Nolan said. “He has allowed us to win some games we had no business even being in. He has given our young kids so much confidence because they can make a glaring error and it doesn’t always end up as a goal. He’s a true superstar, but he doesn’t have that superstar mentality. He’s just a very down-to-earth guy.”
He’s also a guy who happens to play out of this world. After 59 games this season, the Sabres had been outshot 48 times but had a winning record of 2416-8 in those games. They gave up 40 or more shots in nine games. On 35 occasions, they surrendered between 30 and 39 shots. Only 15 times had the Sabres limited the opposition to 29 or fewer. And get this-not once in their 59 games did the Sabres register 40 or more shots on the opposition net.
The Sabres’ leading scorer, Derek Plante (23 goals and 39 points) was tied for 79th in the league. Garry Galley led Sabre defensemen in scoring (two goals and 29 points), tying him for 19th amongst league blueliners. Hasek, meanwhile, led the NHL in wins (29), shots (3,190) and save percentage (92.6).
They don’t call him The Dominator for nothing. Dom for MVP. The line forms to the left and it will come as no surprise if he’s the first goaltender to win the Hart Trophy since Jacques Plante in 1962.
So, that makes Buffalo a one-man team, right?
“If you say so,” said Barnaby, the 15-goal, 198 penalty-minute man who could hit the rare 20/300 ratio. “If everyone wants to say that, fine. It doesn’t matter to us. We’re in first place. Would we be there without Dominik? No chance, but he is here and we are (in first place).”
Sabre success unquestionably starts with Hasek, but it doesn’t end with him. It’s a multi-faceted club, albeit inexperienced and on the small side, that epitomizes the team approach.
“I don’t feel like I’m playing any better,” Hasek said. “But the team around me is much better. I’m really surprised at the way we are playing because it’s almost the same players as last year, but now they have more experience and confidence.”
GM John Muckier, in spite of the much-ballyhooed Cold War with Nolan, has done his job acquiring youthful talent while drastically reducing the payroll. The Alexander Mogilny trade in 1995 that netted the Sabres Peca (one of the best-kept secrets in the NHL), 6-foot-6 defenseman Mike Wilson (he is playing regularly and playing well) and blue-chip blueline prospect Jay McKee has been a nifty talent grab for what was supposed to be an exercise in salary dumping.
Muckier parlayed veterans Doug Bodger and Craig Muni into emerging left winger Michal Grosek, steady defender Darryl Shannon (who has had a terrific influence on Wilson) and two prospects, left winger Vaclav Varada and defenseman Mike Martone.
SITTING BULL STRATEGY NO BULL FOR THIS TEAM
The defense corps-a rejuvenated Alexei Zhitnik with unheralded Richard Smehlik, the Wilson-Shannon combo and Galley-Boughner tandem-is more than the sum of its parts.
The Sabres’ fighters fight (May, Ray, Boughner, and Barnaby). The scorers, modest as their totals may be, score (Plante, 23; Brian Holzinger, 16; Donald Audette, 21; Peca, 14; Jason Dawe, 18; and Grosek, 12). Often, one of the fighters (Barnaby) scores, or one of the scorers (Peca) fights.
“We’re the best third-line team in the league,” said Sabres’ assistant coach Paul Theriault. “We don’t have a first line, don’t have a second line. We’ve got four third lines.”
That won’t always be true. A number of Sabres are showing substantial development, not the least of whom is Peca.
His numbers are deceiving. He’s 5-foot-11, 180 pounds, but one of the best open-ice hitters in the NHL (ask Teemu Selanne or Chris Simon). He’s fast, feisty but not devoid of finesse-”he has got velvet hammers for hands,” Theriault said.
We’ll find out March 8 in Montreal just how vindictive he is because Vincent Damphousse ripped open Peca’s lower lip and rearranged his dental work with a cross-check to the face Feb. 12.
There isn’t any situation in which the Sabres don’t use him-three of his 14 goals were on the power play and four were shorthanded-and he’s emerging as an inspirational leader.
But then what else would you expect from a kid who was weaned on Tony Robbins and the power of positive thinking? Mind you, what choice was there but Robbins for a teen who was 5-foot-9 and 145 pounds on the day he was drafted by the Sudbury Wolves from the Toronto Red Wing bantams?
“He’s going to become one of the really complete players in the game,” Muckier said.
There is, however, no escaping the Hasek factor.
Yet if the Dominator is the Sabres’ saving grace, then Nolan is their soul man, a players’ coach who alternately supplies pain and pleasure.
“He makes guys fear the loss of their job,” Peca said. “I don’t mean long-term fear. It’s just that he’s not afraid to sit anybody. As fair and lenient as he is most of the time, guys are afraid of him and how he can force discipline with us.
“You have to really respect the man for what he does and, sometimes, what he doesn’t do. He can be lenient. He gives us a lot of days off. But he has also had us come to the rink early, skate us twice in the same day, and really whip us.”
That was the western road trip last season when Nolan canceled the plane from San Jose to Los Angeles, bused the players all over the state of California instead and ran an all-day session (two practices, meetings, etc.) that resulted in mass cancellations of golf games and limo rentals.
Nolan wants it known the off-days he has given his team this season has been more out of necessity than charity.
“We’re a small team and it’s a long grind,” he said. “They need those days off if we’re going to be able to compete against the big boys in the playoffs.”
Nolan is not just an NHL coach; he’s an NHL coach who’s a native. With him, you cannot separate the two.
He wants to win the Stanley Cup because “that’s what it’s all about.” But he also wants to do it for the cause of his people. Long before he dreamed of winning the Stanley Cup as a player or coach, the former journeyman pro, who played alongside Wayne Gretzky in their Soo Greyhound days, had greater visions of glory. He still does.
“I want one day to become the national chief,” Nolan said of the native posting that is the equivalent of Prime Minister or President. “That has always been my ultimate goal. I’m not in the game just to hang on and say I coached 10 years. I’m in it to win (the Cup). If I don’t win, I’ll move on to do the other things that are important in my life.”
And he will do them his way. He has an unwavering vision of what works for him, whatever the consequences.
For example, with few exceptions, he won’t fraternize with his fellow coaches in the NHL. “If I get to be friends with someone I’m afraid I won’t want to beat them,” Nolan said. “If I don’t know them, then I won’t feel bad about kicking the crap out of them.”
And though he stands out as a minority of one in the NHL, he is intent on imparting his values to the masses as much as North American society imposes its mores on him.
He has shared the leadership strategies of Sitting Bull with his players. He has explained how buffalo leadership-one buffalo leading the pack until exhaustion isn’t nearly as effective as the leadership shown by geese-one leads the formation until tiring and moves to the back to let another take its place.
He isn’t kidding when he talks about educating his players to the native traditions of sweetgrass and sage and, yes, even the Legend of the White Buffalo.
“I figure if Phil Jackson can do it with Michael Jordan and Dennis Rodman,” Nolan said, fingering a strand of sweetgrass and eyeing the White Buffalo, “then I can do it with Pat LaFontaine and Dominik Hasek.”
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