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Roy, Sabres hand Rangers another road defeat

Feb 22, 2009 - 5:44 AM BUFFALO, New York (Ticker) -- Derek Roy recorded a goal and two assists to lead the Buffalo Sabres to a 4-2 victory over the New York Rangers on Saturday.

Daniel Paille, Andrej Sekera and Jochen Hecht also scored for Buffalo.

The Sabres suffered a bad break despite the win as goaltender Ryan Miller left the game two minutes into the third period after being tripped up behind the net by New York center Scott Gomez. Miller, who stopped all 20 shots he faced, limped off favoring his left leg and did not return.

"It's stiff, it's an ankle sprain. We took some x-rays, those didn't show anything," Miller said. "These are things you have to feel out. There's no timetable. It's your comfort level. Right now I just want to get through the night, to the morning, and see how my body reacts.

"I haven't seen the replay. I know Scott personally. I don't think he would ever come in and try and injure me especially when I'm not facing the play. Some of the guys say he may have lost an edge. The referee said he lost an edge. He's not that kind of guy."

Buffalo coach Lindy Ruff saw things differently.

"I don't think there's any secret it was deliberate," Ruff said. "They wanted to disrupt us. We put in a cold goaltender to face a power play."

Markus Naslund and Nigel Dawes scored for the Rangers. Both tallies were against Patrick Lalime, who made 11 saves after replacing Miller.

For the Rangers it was just more of the same old road woes.

New York is mired in an eight-game road losing streak and is just 2-7-2 in its last 11 games overall. The Rangers have not won on the road since a 3-2 triumph at Chicago in mid-January, going 0-7-1 in that span.

Roy assisted on Buffalo's first two goals and then he added a tally of his own in the second period as the Sabres opened up a 3-0 lead.

"It's a big one for us. We let one slip away against Carolina. We responded tonight at home," Roy said. "I thought it was a big game, a desperate team, a really good team with good goaltending. I thought we played a sound game, we buried our chances."

Paille opened the scoring just over four minutes into the game when he got his stick on a centering pass from Roy. Sekera doubled the advantage less than three minutes when he scored off a drop pass from Roy, beating Rangers goaltender Henrik Lundvist over his right shoulder.

"I just stepped on the ice and Derek (Roy) took a pass from Butler, had his head up the whole way, made some nice moves, got him thinking," Paille said. "I just went to the net and shot five hole."

Roy made it 3-0 with a power-play goal in the third period and Jochen Hecht added a goal in the final session that made it 4-1.

"We get scored on and then we don't play the way we should play," Lundqvist said. "We try things that are not there and get a little panic. We play a lot better when we're relaxed, more confidence. One goal can change so much."