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Zednik, Jokinen lead charge as Panthers top Sabres

Nov 3, 2007 - 4:06 AM BUFFALO, New York (Ticker) -- While Olli Jokinen remained hot, Richard Zednik is just beginning to heat up for the Florida Panthers.

Zednik scored two goals and Jokinen added his sixth in five games as the Panthers rode a late outburst in the second period to a 4-2 victory over the Buffalo Sabres on Friday.

Radek Dvorak also tallied and Jozef Stumpel recorded two assists for Florida, which avenged a home loss to Buffalo eight days ago.

"You can't look behind," Panthers coach Jacques Martin said. "We let the game slip away last Friday in our building, so we owed them one. We battled hard and got the two points."

With the game even at 1-1, Zednik put the Panthers ahead for good with 6:25 remaining in the middle session. From the right faceoff circle, Stumpel passed the puck to Zednik, who tapped it into a vacant net from alone on the doorstep for his second goal in as many contests.

Just 3:15 later, the Slovakians teamed up to extend Florida's lead.

After receiving a pass from Stumpel, Zednik carried down the right wing and unleashed a shot from the faceoff circle that was blocked by defenseman Andrej Sekera. The puck came right back to Zednik, who put it just under the crossbar at 16:50 for a 3-1 bulge.

"The first one was pretty easy," Zednik said. "The second one, when you create chances, you'll get your chances. Our whole team created chances in the second period, and we capitalized."

Entering with three tallies in his last two games, Jokinen netted his eighth of the season less than two minutes later for a 4-1 cushion. Nathan Horton made a cross-slot pass from the left circle to Florida's captain, who punched it into a wide-open net with 83 seconds left in the second.

"We played very solid in the second period," Jokinen said. "We played smart hockey and didn't make too many mistakes, and our trap was very good. It's not the kind of hockey we want to play, but sometimes it goes that way and you have to back off and wait for other teams to make the mistakes."

Dvorak opened the scoring at 5:32 of the first period, beating goaltender Jocelyn Thibault with a backhander for his first goal of the campaign.

Jochen Hecht pulled Buffalo even just over nine minutes into the second, gathering the rebound of defenseman Henrik Tallinder's shot and backhanding it around sprawled netminder Tomas Vokoun at 9:08.

"When they tied the game, we didn't get rattled," Jokinen said. "In the past, we would get a little nervous. Other teams would find a way to score against us."

Vokoun finished with 26 saves for the Panthers, who made Martin's 1,029th game as a coach a successful one. Martin moved past Brian Sutter for eighth place on the all-time list.

"This team has to learn to win," Vokoun said. "(Earlier this season), we probably gave away at least two or possibly four points. That could put us in the playoffs. There's a lot of room for improvement, especially in crucial moments. We have to bend but not break."

Thomas Vanek scored a late power-play goal for Buffalo, which has lost five of its last seven contests.

The game was Lindy Ruff's 750th behind the Sabres' bench, making him the 31st coach in NHL history to reach the plateau. However, Ruff was disappointed with his team's effort in this one.

"We were flat-out awful at times," he said. "They got us on the run a little bit and we didn't do a lot about it. We had defensemen that joined (the rush), forwards that went back and then forwards that left. We didn't take care of our own end."

Thibault turned aside 20 shots in just his second start of the season for Buffalo.

"Every time you give up a goal, you wonder what you could do better," Thibault said. "There were obviously some tough situations for a goalie to play, but I have to come up with a way to make the plays."

Ruff found little fault in Thibault's effort.

"We hung him out to dry," the coach said. "You can break it down any way you want, (but) we weren't good enough in our own end."