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Drury scores twice as Sabres grab league's top spot

Mar 31, 2007 - 6:26 AM BUFFALO, New York (Ticker) -- Chris Drury and the Buffalo Sabres are starting to score goals again, which is bad news for the rest of the NHL.

Drury snapped a six-game goalless drought with a pair of tallies and Jason Pominville collected three assists as the Sabres scored five times in the first period en route to a 6-4 victory over the New York Islanders.

Thomas Vanek, Derek Roy and rookie Drew Stafford each had a goal and an assist for the Sabres, who have scored 21 times in their last five contests and lead the NHL with 292 tallies.

Drury also set up a goal and fellow co-captain Daniel Briere added two assists for Buffalo (50-20-7), which took a seven-point lead over three teams for first place in the Eastern Conference and moved one ahead of Detroit (47-19-12) in the race for the Presidents' Trophy.

The win also marked the second straight season the Sabres have reached the 50-victory plateau.

"It's a pretty good accomplishment, considering where we were before the lockout," Drury said. "To have back-to-back 50-win seasons is pretty good."

Dainius Zubrus also scored for the Sabres, who went 3-for-7 on the power play in winning for the fourth time in five games.

The game was decided when Buffalo pumped in four goals in just over seven minutes in the first period to pull away from New York.

"I think everybody was on the same page," Roy said. "We came out really strong. The coach got us ready this week in practice. The offense came through, and we just have to tighten up in the second and third periods."

"We were moving the puck pretty good," Drury said. "We were in kind of a slump a couple weeks ago. The power play has been going pretty good, and hopefully we can keep it going into the playoffs."

Islanders coach Ted Nolan was not pleased with his club's sluggish start.

"You can only mention to your athletes so many times what we'd like to do," he said. "We have got to get our heads out of our (butts) and concentrate on what we need to do to get in the playoffs."

With Buffalo already ahead, 2-1, Drury one-timed a blast from the top of the left faceoff circle past goaltender Mike Dunham midway through the first period.

He capped his sixth multi-goal game of the campaign with a shorthanded tally with 5:03 remaining in the session, skating in on a breakaway and deking Dunham before slipping in a backhander for his 37th of the season.

Viktor Kozlov netted a pair of tallies and defenseman Tom Poti added a goal and an assist for the Islanders (36-29-12), who remained four points behind the Montreal Canadiens (40-32-6) for the final playoff spot in the conference.

Jason Blake scored his career-high 39th goal for New York, which the Islanders, who have lost three straight contests.

"We're down 5-1 after one period, and we tried to make a comeback," Blake said. "It's embarrassing. For a team fighting for their lives to do that in the first period, it doesn't matter what team you're playing. It's unacceptable."