BUFFALO – The Toronto Maple Leafs took a giant step towards the second seed in the Atlantic Division with a 4-2 win over the Buffalo Sabres Monday night.
The Leafs won for the seventh time in eight games and avenged their only loss during that stretch: a 5-2 defeat in Buffalo just 10 nights before. In fact, that was Toronto’s single loss in regulation since March 14 when they were smoked by the Panthers 7-2 over spring break.
“This is a pretty good time of year for us,” Auston Matthews said in a colossal understatement. The fact is, for the majority of those in the Toronto dressing room this is the best time of their young professional lives.
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Not so long ago the idea of the Maple Leafs securing a second wild-card slot in the East was a fever dream for fans but now a second-place finish in the division and home ice in the first round of the playoffs seems within reach—not easy reach, mind you. Though their remaining four games are at the ACC, you wouldn’t call any a gimme—starting with Presidents’ Trophy front-runners Washington Tuesday in the second half of a back-to-back, then hosting Tampa Bay, 6-3-1 in their last 10, and winding up the season with Pittsburgh and Columbus, second and third in the Eastern Conference Saturday and Sunday night. Maybe the Leafs can find some points in there. To be determined.
The Leafs put the game against the Sabres to bed in a stretch of 43 furious seconds in the game’s first five minutes.
Leo Komarov opened the scoring with a play that was curious but representative of the Leafs’ night. Komarov took a header on a rush up the ice and tumbled into the net behind Sabres goalie Robin Lehner. Seemingly out of the play, Komarov got back up on his skates, seemingly in no great rush. Sabres defenceman Jake McCabe had a routine play to clear the puck but coughed it up to Nazem Kadri who threw it to his left-winger for his 14th goal of the season and likely his easiest. Lehner seemed to have forgotten Komarov was on the ice or at least misplaced him.
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Matthews made it 2-0 just 35 seconds after that, taking a pass from William Nylander, cruising into the slot and wiring a shot glove side behind Lehner. The goal was Matthews’ 39th of the season. In the Leafs’ run over the last three weeks he not only has shattered Toronto’s rookie scoring record but along the way just about secured the Calder Trophy.
Just eight seconds later off a faceoff in the Buffalo end, Tyler Bozak won a draw from Jack Eichel, the star the Sabres call their own, and the puck landed on the tape of James van Riemsdyk’s stick. The puck was by Lehner in a blink. Buffalo coach Dan Bylsma pulled Lehner at that point. He had stopped two of five shots he faced. Anders Nilsson stepped in and handled himself admirably.
The game was almost ridiculously one-sided; shots stood at 18-2 in favour of Toronto after the first period. If that wasn’t enough, the Sabres blocked nine attempts in the first 25 minutes and the Leafs had only four ricochet off their shin pads. The final shots-on-goal numbers, 45-22 in favour of the visitors, only hinted at the game’s tiltedness.
Ryan O’Reilly got a goal back for the home side, scoring short-handed early in the second period, turning Jake Gardiner around on the rush and beating an ice-cold Frederik Andersen. Not enough to revive his team however, understandably given the state of the franchise.
The game was utterly meaningless to the Sabres—they’re out of the playoffs, have been for as long as anyone can remember, and their coach Dan Bylsma is rumoured to be not long for Buffalo.
The Sabres weren’t inspired to anything but mischief, really. It might be hard to imagine a game as one-sided being bad-tempered but the home side acted out on a season’s worth of frustrations in third period.
It was set in motion by Eichel who gave Mitch Marner a two-hander across the spine, driving the Leafs rookie into the glass and setting off a minor melee. Eichel wound up with a minor for boarding and that would lead directly to the clinching Toronto goal and yet another melee.
On the ensuing power play, Kadri jockeyed for position with Buffalo forward Zemgus Girgensons in front of Nilsson’s net, with Kadri knocked down. He got back up to his feet, took a pass from Marner and found the gap between Nilsson’s pads to make it 4-1. Kadri trash-talked Sabres defenceman Rasmus Ristolainen and all skaters wound up in an impromptu tag-team match, albeit one where no one dropped the gloves across a couple of fraught minutes.
Eichel wound up scoring a goal on a last-minute breakaway, a microcosm of his season—a lot of skill in a vacuum. You can easily understand just how awful these last weeks are for an elite young player who came back from a high-ankle sprain when the season was already a lost cause.
No such worries for coach Mike Babcock. No pieces of his precious china were cracked or broken in Buffalo Monday night, and he’ll need all of them for the four home games coming up.
