Barnes Helps Sabres Put Penguins on Thin Ice

Stu Barnes of the Buffalo Sabres doesn’t have anything against his former team. The Pittsburgh Penguins probably don’t agree.

With his second consecutive winner, Barnes capped a three-goal comeback Saturday, slapping a 40-foot shot in off the crossbar 8:34 into overtime to seal the Sabres’ 3-2 victory.

Suddenly, the Sabres are ahead, 3-2, in the best-of-seven second-round series, one victory from reaching the Eastern Conference finals for the third time in four seasons. Game 6 is Tuesday at Pittsburgh, where the Sabres won the previous two games by a combined score of 9-3.

“For us, I don’t feel like we’ve accomplished anything yet,” said Barnes, who spent parts of three seasons in Pittsburgh before being acquired by the Sabres late in the 1998-99 season. “We feel that this is a dangerous team we’re playing. You just go down the lineup there. They’ve got so many guys that can score goals that we’re going to have to play a lot better than we did tonight.”

After a flat start, the Sabres got two fortunate bounces off Penguin players to tie the score. There was nothing lucky about Barnes’ goal.

J.P. Dumont outworked Pittsburgh defender Bob Boughner for a loose puck just inside the Pittsburgh zone and batted it back to Barnes, who was crossing the blue line.

Without stopping, Barnes wound up and beat goalie Johan Hedberg over the left shoulder. Barnes, who has four goals and five points in the series, also scored the winner in Buffalo’s 5-2 victory in Game 4.

The Penguins now face the ghosts of last year’s playoffs. After winning the first two games at Philadelphia in their second-round series, the Penguins lost the next four.