The Sabres went to Toronto tonight to face off against the rival Leafs, looking to catch some of the success they had against Toronto last year looking to end a bad seven game losing streak. That didn’t happen though with our defense playing horribly again in a 5-2 loss.
Once again the Sabres put themselves in a hole to start tonight’s game, with John Tavares tipping in a Mitch Marner one timer on the power play 12:58 into the first to put the Leafs up 1-0. Calle Jarnkrok got the puck perfectly in the middle of the ice on a horrible defensive breakdown for the Sabres, firing it in for a 2-0 Toronto lead with 2:33 left in the first. With the Sabres on the power play, Mitch Marner went on a breakaway short handed and as Alex Tuch crashed into the net knocking it off it moorings, it was determined after review that with the eminent scoring chance, Mark Giordano got credited with a goal with the puck crossing the goal line where the net should have been. With that counting, 3-0 Leafs.
Horrible defensive first period of the Sabres and even with some decent scoring chances, were couldn’t get a goal in the opening period and went into the second with a 3-0 deficit. Couldn’t even blame UPL on any of those goal, the defense was fucking horrendous.
Almost exactly halfway through the game with 10:01 into the second period, the Sabres finally got on the board with a redirection on a deflection off Alex Tuch’s stick from a Dylan Cozens shot that bounced into the goal to make it a 3-1 game. The Leafs answered back with another power play goal of their own with William Nylander pushing the puck into the back of the net behind UPL with 5:24 left in the second making it a 4-1 lead. The Sabres played way better in the second period, having a lot of good scoring chances but only capitalizing once. The defense did seem a bit better but they still needed to improve.
10:37 into the third period, William Nylander put the jets on getting past Henri Jokiharju to put the Leafs up 5-1. In pretty much garbage time with 5:13 left in the game, Casey Mittelstadt followed up on a rebound, putting the puck past Matt Murray for the Sabres second goal of the game to make it 5-2.
The Leafs cruised their way to a 5-2 win.
FINAL: Sabres 5, Maple Leafs 2
Another pathetic loss that was never even close to a competitive game. Our defense is fucking horrible. You couldn’t really even blame UPL for any of the goals we gave up tonight cause the D in front of him was entirely non existent. The defense didn’t put any pressure on Toronto. Our penalty kill is one of the worst units in the league, giving up goals on 40% of their penalties and did that twice again tonight.
Few days off and back at it again Tuesday night in Montreal. Need some kind of improvement
Go Sabres.
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