Sabres vs. Maple Leafs: 3/30/24 – Game Reactions/Recap
Tonight was a pretty lousy loss for the Sabres, not playing bad, but getting shut out in a 3-0 loss at home to the Leafs despite outshooting Toronto 34-22 on a fantastic performance by Ilya Samsonov in goal for the Maple Leafs. The Leafs opened t…
Tonight was a pretty lousy loss for the Sabres, not playing bad, but getting shut out in a 3-0 loss at home to the Leafs despite outshooting Toronto 34-22 on a fantastic performance by Ilya Samsonov in goal for the Maple Leafs.
The Leafs opened the scoring 4:58 into the game as John Tavares, who's uncle's #11 is up in the rafters of KeyBank Center, was wide open and got a clean shot in front on UPL to put Toronto up 1-0 in his 1,100th career game. Pretty fun period to watch with both teams getting some good chances to score as we outshot Toronto 10-8, but we couldn't score on back to back power plays and we go into the first intermission still down a goal.
Toronto added to their lead, making it 2-0 just 2:34 into the second, with the giving up a breakaway chance to Nick Robertson who capitalized on Luukkonen. I thought it was a pretty lousy period for the Sabres offensively, but there wasn't a whole lot of action in general, as we outshot the Leafs 8-4, but we didn't really sustain much pressure in Toronto's zone. Solid defense for Buffalo though.
The Sabres started the third looking much better, and had several really good scoring chances, with Samsonov playing great in goal. It was the Leafs that scored first though. Through traffic, after a great save by UPL, Auston Matthews scored his 60th goal of the season with 5:37 left in the game on a fantastic effort in front of the net on the crease, making it a three goal lead for the Leafs. With a big melee at the end of the game, all five guys on the ice got kicked out of the game to prevent more chaos from ensuing.
Not a great game. Ilya Samsonov was easily the best player on the ice tonight. Although the Sabres didn't start the game well, I don't think that was what got us this loss. We outshot the Leaf 34-22 and outplayed them by an expected goal rate of 4.13-1.74, but just couldn't solve Samsonov. There were times that we couldn't sustain pressure in the Leafs zone, and the defense wasn't great at times.
Back at it on Tuesday night when I'll be there in the arena as Ovi and the Caps come to town.
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