Just 24 hours following a pitiful 5-1 performance on Friday night, the Buffalo Sabres roared back and put up six goals on the Maple Leafs.
The Buffalo Sabres let the Toronto Maple Leafs tie the game up three times tonight, and they had an answer in each instance. It was like the Blue and Gold had one thing in mind and one thing only: Avenge their paltry 5-1 loss from the previous evening.
It’s sweet every time this team goes out onto the ice and shows that they are better than they played recently. But it’s even sweeter when they do this against their biggest rival, especially when that rival is supposed to be one of the NHL’s best teams.
And there were no shortages of highlight reel moments. JJ Peterka got things rolling just over four minutes after the Leafs scored the opening goal of the evening, so you can, in a manner of speaking, say the Sabres responded FOUR TIMES. But they were just getting started when Peterka found twine.
Buffalo Sabres put up six goals in a much-needed win over Toronto
With the Maple Leafs on the power play six and a half minutes into the second frame, Tage Thompson put up his second shorthanded goal of the year, and his sixth overall. Auston Matthews found the net off of helpers from William Nylander and Mitchell Marner about five minutes later, but just 34 seconds after that, the biggest highlight of the evening occurred.
Ryan Johnson, who was called up thanks to Mattias Samuelsson’s injury, made his presence known, and found Jeff Skinner on an incredible pass to put the Sabres up 3-2. After no scoring occurred for the rest of the period, Matthews again responded for the Leafs and scored just 17 seconds into the third period, but once again, the Sabres had an answer.
Jordan Greenway put the Blue and Gold up 4-3 just under three minutes later, but Matthews once again scored to tie the game at four at the 7:26 mark of the third. It looked like this game could be headed to overtime, but Alex Tuch tipped one in off of a shot from Rasmus Dahlin to put Buffalo up 5-4, and Tuch also sealed the deal just over six minutes later to give the Buffalo Sabres the win.
Overall, it was an incredible win for a team that needed a bounce-back performance thanks to last night’s pedestrian outing. Now 6-6-0, the Sabres will once again try to claw their way over 0.500 when they visit the Carolina Hurricanes on Tuesday.
(Statistics provided by NHL.com)