Satan Scores 40th In Sabres Win

Miroslav Satan became the 10th Buffalo Sabre to score 40 goals in a season Sunday night. He feels his biggest impact needs to be in the Stanley Cup playoffs.

"Getting 40 is a nice accomplishment," said Satan, who notched his 40th goal in the season finale, a 3-0 victory over the Washington Capitals. "It's getting tougher every year."

The right wing became one of just nine players in the NHL this season to score at least 40. He also joined such Sabres luminaries as Gil Perreault, Richard Martin, Alexander Mogilny and Pat LaFontaine as members of the franchise's 40-goal club.

Satan, Paul Kruse and Jason Woolley scored for Buffalo. Dominik Hasek was almost overshadowed, making 25 saves en route to his ninth shutout of the season and 42nd of his career.

The Sabres ended the season with 91 points and will be seeded seventh when the Eastern Conference playoffs begin Wednesday night. Buffalo will face the Ottawa Senators in a best-of-7 series.

"There's not going to be too many goals in those games," Satan said. "It's going to be a defensive, boring series."

"Both teams play very well defensively," Sabres coach Lindy Ruff said. "Both teams have great speed. I think you're going to see a lot of one-goal games."

Sunday night, Buffalo needed a win to assure being the seventh seed. A loss or tie would have placed them eighth and given them a playoff date with the New Jersey Devils. So while the game against Washington wasn't exactly a tuneup for the playoffs, Buffalo did get to enjoy having its marquee players rounding out fine seasons.

"We've had five or six players who have had career years," Ruff said. "There's a group of players that can be extremely proud of what they accomplished in the regular season."

The Sabres had four players with at least 15 goals and career-highs for goals Satan, Michael Peca (27), Michl Grosek (20) and Curtis Brown (16).

Hasek, earning his 30th victory of the season, stopped 14 shots in the first period.

"It's a long time ago when I last had a shutout," said Hasek, whose last shutout was Jan. 18 at Florida. "It wasn't a goal for me. I'm glad to have the shutout, but I'm glad to have my average under two goals a game."

Hasek ended the season with a goals against average of 1.87 and a save percentage of .937.

Satan scored the game's first goal on the power play 6:06 into the second period. Woolley delivered a pass from the left point to Satan, who was waiting in the right faceoff circle and one-timed the puck past Martin Brochu.

Brochu, making his second NHL start, again had no offensive support. His NHL debut last Wednesday was a 3-0 loss to Carolina.

"I would have liked to see him tested a little bit more," Capitals coach Ron Wilson said. "They had a couple of quality chances in the first period and not much after that."

Kruse netted his third of the season with 5:08 remaining in the game, and Woolley tallied his 10th with 1:51 to go.

Washington, who played in the Stanley Cup finals last spring against Detroit, finished with 68 points and did not qualify for the playoffs. They lost their last six games, and were 2-11-0 since March 21.

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