Hurricanes Won't Quit

Sabres roster

"It's definitely a big goal for our hockey club," said Coffey. "To be honest, I think if we lose tonight, we're pretty much done. It gives us some confidence now and hopefully we can keep it going."

Paul Ranheim and Sean Hill also scored for Carolina and Arturs Irbe made 19 saves for the Hurricanes, who have four games left.

"We had to keep their chances down because they are a very explosive team with speed upfront, plus they have Dom in the net," Irbe said. "I thought a shutout might be necessary just to get the win because it's hard to score on Dom. It was my first NHL win against Dom. They don't get any bigger than tonight."

Vaclav Varada scored for the Sabres, who had a four-game winning streak come to an end. Buffalo has five games left, starting with Saturday's contest at Montreal.

The Sabres took a lot of penalties and Coffey's goal came on Carolina's fourth straight power-play.

"It's just unlucky," said Sabres defenseman Jason Woolley. "When they string three (power-play) opportunities together, it's a little unusual. But we don't want to use that as an excuse."

"It's tough, obviously it took a lot of our players out of the game, because you just spent the better part of six or seven minutes killing penalties," said Buffalo coach Lindy Ruff.