Tonight the Sabres returned home from a successful California road trip with a huge game at home against the Toronto Maple Leafs. Big game on national TV and we got dominated in a 6-3 loss for one of the most pathetic games of the year.
The Leafs scored first, 3:51 into the game, with former Sabre Ryan O’Reilly scoring his first goal as a Toronto Maple Leaf after getting traded home a few days ago from the Blues, scoring on a beautiful feed from Mitch Marner. Just 37 seconds later, they did the same thing again to make it 2-0 Toronto, RoR from Marner, again. Garbage start. Terrible defense for the Sabres on both of those scoring chances. 7:14 into the game, another Buffalo connection on the same line for Toronto, John Tavares, who’s uncle’s number is hanging up in the rafters of KeyBank Center as the the great lacrosse player of all time and the current Buffalo Bandits head coach (my hero since I was eight years old), made it 3-0 Maple Leafs. Way too early for the Sabres to be in a 3-0 hole and thankfully I at least have the over in this game. Really regretting not taking the Leafs here when I literally said in my article I wrote for StatSalt on tonight’s game how great of a bet the Leafs ML was, especially at the price. But as the hometown guy that absolutely hates the fucking Leafs, I decided to bet on my boys instead. Michael Bunting made it 4-0 with 7:51 left in the first period. Its as if our defense doesn’t even exist tonight. With that goal, Don Granato pulled UPL and put Craig Anderson in goal. What a horrible start and just a terrible first period. We got outshot 16-7, heading into the first intermission in a brutal 4-0 hole after having gotten dominated in that first 20 minutes.
With 5:24 left in the second period, the Leafs extended their lead with a tip in from William Nylander. God this game sucks. I’m not sure if we played a better period or the Leafs just didn’t care as they let their foot off the gas. We outshot the Leafs 12-6 in the second period but still looked like the inferior team and we haven’t even had one decent scoring chance all game. What a shit game.
The Sabres FINALLY scored their first goal of the game 5:12 into the third period on the power play with Jack Quinn breaking the shutout to put this garbage game at 5-1. Alex tuch was incredible driving through the entire Leafs defense and going coast to coast for the Sabres second goal of the game, making it 5-2 with 11:56 left in the game, his 100th goal of his career. That goal hit the over, so at least we got that going for us. With 3:31 left in the game, Jeff Skinner made it a game, capitalizing in transition to make it 5-3, which is easily the most fun this game has been through more than 56 minutes. Ryan O’Reilly capped off the game with an empty net goal with 1:10 left in the game for his hat trick, thrilling all the annoying fucking Leafs fans that made their trip down for cheaper tickets in Buffalo. Fuck this team.
Final: Sabres 3, Maple Leafs 6
Blow Leafs Blow. Enjoy the win tonight now before the Bolts knock you fuckers out in the first round again.
Horrible game for the Sabres. Getting into a 4-0 hole early in the first period in that lousy of fashion was just too much to dig out of. We looked like garbage until we decided to show up after the Leafs gave up late in the game. Just such a horrendous game.
It won’t be an easy test in our next game either as we head to Tampa Bay to face the Lightning on Thursday.
Go Sabres.
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