Eloranta (2 goals) settles a feisty one

[ Game summary ]

By Kevin Paul Dupont, Globe Staff, 1/27/2001

UFFALO - When Bruins practice came to an end here Wednesday, Mikko Eloranta was among the last to file back into the dressing room.

''Hey, Mikko,'' said Byron Dafoe, catching Eloranta's attention, enough to make the Finnish forward stop by the goalie's stall.

''Yeah?'' said a curious Eloranta.

''You were brutal out there,'' said Dafoe.

Eloranta, playing to the public flogging, made his way to his locker, next to Dixon Ward.

''You know something?'' Ward greeted him, Dafoe still cackling in the background. ''You were awful.''

But the good-natured Eloranta had the last laugh here last night, connecting for a pair of goals for the second time in less than two weeks and leading the Bruins to a 2-1 win over the division rival Buffalo Sabres.

Eloranta scored the go-ahead goal in the first period, following up a Bill Guerin rebound, and then banged home the tiebreaker with 6:35 gone in the third, connecting with a sweep of a dead puck after a faceoff to Dominik Hasek's right.

The victory, the sixth in nine games for the Bruins, bumped them back over the .500 mark (20-19-6-5) and slipped them ahead of Carolina for the No. 8 playoff spot in the Eastern Conference.

The 27-year-old Eloranta has had a particularly rough ride since Mike Keenan took control of the Boston bench in October. There have been nights when Eloranta, not impressing Keenan with his lack of aggressive play, got less than two minutes of ice time. Then came six weeks of not knowing whether he would play on a fourth line or sit in the press box, leading to 11 DNDs (did not dress).

''It was hard for me, watching from up in the stands,'' said Eloranta, whose skating and renewed aggressiveness of late have earned him increased ice time. ''I knew I could play here, but ...''

But Keenan wanted more. He at least wanted the same from Eloranta, on a shift-to-shift, night-to-night basis.

''I challenged him,'' said Keenan. ''And like most players, he had a difficult time with a demanding coach. But I made it clear I wanted his best on a consistent basis. He had shown flashes, and I think he had a difficult time understanding it.''

On the first goal, Eloranta hadn't yet changed places with Jason Allison on a line change when Guerin stole the puck from Jay McKee and broke in on Hasek. Trailing hard on Guerin's heels, Eloranta picked up the rebound for the easy pot. On the winner, he handed over the keys to right winger Mike Knuble for an important draw to Hasek's right, and then walked in to collect a dead puck and wrist it through Hasek's five hole.

By and large, it was a night far too influenced by some shabby officiating by young referees Tom Kowal and Kevin Pollock. The less-than-dynamic duo often lost control of the game, missing some obvious calls. One mistake was not penalizing Don Sweeney for riveting rookie Denis Hamel with a charging elbow along the boards. Later, Hamel should have been tossed when he clobbered Andrei Kovalenko in Boston's attacking zone, dropping the Tank with a vicious hit that clearly was an intent to injure.

Earlier, Sweeney was the victim of a leg-to-leg hit by McKee, a dirty hit that still had Sweeney limping when he made his way to the team bus.

Lost some in the shuffle was the outstanding work of Dafoe, who turned back 29 shots, giving up only a Hamel power-play strike with 37 seconds gone in the second period. The Sabres weren't allowed to pepper Dafoe with repeated shots, but they had a handful of good chances that easily could have been converted if not for Dafoe's steady hand. There were some breakdowns by the Boston defense, in part, again, because of poor officiating.

''I thought Byron was the difference for us,'' said Keenan, whose charges will take on the Stanley Cup champion Devils tonight at the Vault, no doubt with Dafoe back in net. ''He was really solid when we needed him. You need big goalies to win big games, and in my opinion, that was his biggest game of the season.''

This story ran on page G01 of the Boston Globe on 1/27/2001.
© Copyright 2001 Globe Newspaper Company.