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Leafs Blow Into Town, Blow Over Sabres

Rielly scores last-minute goal in win over Buffalo.

Score: BUF - 4 | EDM - 5

Shots: Sabres 27 | Leafs 26

Buffalo Sabres goals: Jeff Skinner (4, 5), Tage Thompson (5), Rasmus Dahlin (2)

Toronto Maple Leafs goals: David Kampf (2), Ondrej Kase (4), Michael Bunting (4), John Tavares (8), Morgan Rielly (1)

Minus-1: Oh, Come On.

There’s nothing quite like losing a game in the literal last seconds. The Sabres were THIS —> <— CLOSE to at least snagging a point and forcing overtime... and then Morgan Rielly came in and scored with 12 seconds left. At that point, there’s such little time left to muster anything, and all of a sudden you’ve gone from hoping for a victory to skating off the ice with nothing to show for it.

Plus-1: Skinner

He didn’t have a perfect night, but you’ve got to credit Jeff Skinner for his two-goal performance on Saturday night. He’s been stepping up to the plate an finding the offense lately, with three goals and four points in his last six games. (As a reminder, he had seven goals in all of last season. He’s already up to five this season.)

For a while at least, it was a Party in the USA.

Best Game Thread Comment:

Well that’s one way to avoid OT - LetsGoOrange17

Final Thoughts

Just one of those losses that shatters your soul. This was the first meeting between the Sabres and the Leafs in what feels like forever, and it would’ve been nice to see Buffalo get the win on home ice. And of course, this is the only time we’ll actually see the Leafs on KeyBank Center ice this season, which also feels a bit strange! (The other ‘home’ game is the outdoor game in Hamilton in March.)

Aaron Dell in net was.... not great. I’ll leave it at that.

Finally, the last thing I want to comment on: the attendance. I was really curious to see how the attendance would be for Saturday’s game, with it being against the Leafs and with the border being open. It seems, though, that the stringent testing requirements to get back into Canada stifled any parade of Leafs fans that would have normally made the trip over to Buffalo. While there were definitely some Toronto fans in the building, it wasn’t remotely close to a normal game, and overall, attendance still didn’t even hit 8,000. (It was 7,992).

The Sabres have a few days off from game action before heading to Pittsburgh on Tuesday.

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