Buffalo Sabres 2, Florida Panthers 1 FINAL

SUNRISE, Fla. (AP) _ The Buffalo Sabres kept their playoff hopes barely alive. The Florida Panthers are all but finished.

Miroslav Satan and Derek Roy both scored, helping the Sabres beat the Panthers 2-1 Saturday night.

``We can't complain because we won,'' Satan said. ``We're four points out with seven games to go. We have to win almost all of them. That's the way we're looking at it.''

Martin Biron had 23 saves for the Sabres, who are clinging to playoff hopes in the Eastern Conference. Buffalo won for the second time in six games to move within four points of the eight-place New York Islanders with seven games remaining.

``We got ourselves in trouble with penalties,'' said Biron, who had to defend against eight power plays. ``When they started coming hard, the other guys responded. We had a lot of blocked shots in front and a lot of guys hacking in the crease.

``Sometimes I threw my pads out there and hoped the puck would hit me.''

Vaclav Nedorost scored for Florida, which got 21 saves from Roberto Luongo.

``I thought Martin was fabulous for us in the last four or five minutes,'' Buffalo coach Lindy Ruff said. ``He made some big saves for us.''

The Panthers lost their second game in two nights as their playoff chances became even slimmer. Florida is nine points behind the Islanders with seven games left.

``I don't know what to tell you,'' Florida coach John Torchetti said. ``We're just going to keep on working and get better in all areas.''

Florida has had 25 penalties in the last three games.

``If somebody has a recipe to stay out of the box, please send it to me,'' Torchetti said.

The Panthers got within 2-1 at 1:41 of the second. Olli Jokinen passed to Nedorost in front of the Sabres net and he one-timed a shot past Biron.

Buffalo went ahead 2-0 with 2:04 left in first period. Jeff Jillson's shot from the right point was blocked by Luongo but the rebound went out to his right. Luongo couldn't get over in time to stop Roy's shot into the open net.

The Sabres took a 1-0 lead with a power-play goal at 6:29. Satan's slap shot from about 10 feet inside the blue line went over Luongo's right shoulder. It was Satan's 11th power-play goal of the season.

``We weren't able to win the last two games and they were the biggest games of the year,'' Jokinen said. ``Penalties are going to kill your legs, and we took stupid penalties.''