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Roy, Mair come up big as Sabres pound Hurricanes

Mar 15, 2008 - 3:30 AM BUFFALO, New York (Ticker) -- The quick-striking Buffalo Sabres needed just one period to cool off the red-hot Carolina Hurricanes.

Derek Roy scored twice and added an assist as the Sabres used a four-goal first period to post a 7-1 victory over the Hurricanes on Friday.

Adam Mair had a goal and two assists, while Patrick Kaleta, Daniel Paille, Ales Kotalik and Paul Gaustad also scored for Buffalo (33-28-11), which moved within two points of idle Philadelphia (35-27-9) for the eighth and final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference.

Steve Bernier, Jason Pominville and defenseman Henrik Tallinder each had two assists for the Sabres, who put an end to the Hurricanes' season-high five-game winning streak.

"I liked the fact that our grit guys grabbed a hold of the game for us and won us the game," Sabres coach Lindy Ruff said. "They made it really tough for them to play against. I thought that they were the difference in the game - Paille, Mair, Kaleta, Bernier, Gaustad, guys like that. That was the thing I liked the most."

Ryan Miller, who was the beneficiary of the outburst, stopped 27 shots. He lost his shutout bid when Scott Walker scored a shorthanded goal with 8 1/2 minutes remaining in the third period.

Buffalo, which entered with a 1-4-2 mark in its previous seven games, came out with a sense of urgency and scored twice in a span of 21 seconds early in the first.

"It was more of, 'Let's get out and start the game well,'" Roy said. "We put a lot of pressure on the forwards to do the work, and we said, 'If we work in the offensive zone, we don't have to work in the D-zone.' We were pinching all night, making plays, coming up with pucks, winning the battles, and that's something we haven't been doing in the past."

Conversely, Carolina (38-30-5) looked flat. With the embarrassing loss, its lead over Washington (34-30-8) in the Southeast Division was cut to five points as the Capitals posted a 4-1 victory over the Atlanta Thrashers on Friday.

"We got off to a terrible start," Carolina All-Star center Eric Staal said. "We weren't ready, they were ready. They came hard at us. We turned it over, they capitalized and they kept coming. We didn't respond and weren't ready to play."

It was a stunningly bad performance by 2006 Conn Smythe Trophy-winning goaltender Cam Ward, who entered with a sparkling 8-1-1 record while starting each of the Hurricanes' previous 10 games.

"It doesn't matter how you lose, you lose," Staal said. "The points are gone. We have to focus on Sunday. We've got a game against Ottawa, we have to have a win. We need to leave this one here in Buffalo and focus on a win at home against Ottawa."

Ward allowed four goals on seven shots before being pulled in favor of John Grahame at the start of the second.

"It's disappointing, no doubt," Hurricanes defenseman Glen Wesley said. "We didn't come out ready to battle. If we were ready and desperate like they were right from the start, it would have been a different game, but unfortunately, we weren't prepared and our backs were against the wall. They had a 4-0 (lead) and we had a big hole to dig ourselves out of."

Paille opened the scoring by beating Ward with a wrist shot from the slot at 4:44 of the first for his 17th goal of the season. Mair doubled the lead a mere 21 seconds later as he tapped in a pass from Drew Stafford at 5:06.

Roy's 28th goal of season, a shorthander, made it 3-0 at 10:51 of the period, and Gaustad tallied at 13:46 to increase the lead to four.

Kaleta and Roy scored second-period goals and Kotalik capped the scoring for Buffalo with his 21st of the campaign with 3:21 remaining.

"We beat ourselves," Hurricanes coach Peter Laviolette said. "We needed to be sharper, crisper, more effort, more attitude."

Grahame stopped 21 shots for Carolina, which has not won six straight since its Stanley Cup championship season of 2005-06.