Ryan Miller’s run of 31 straight starts wasn’t the only streak broken this week. After more than two years and seven straight losses inside HSBC Arena, the Toronto Maple Leafs finally earned a victory over the Sabres in downtown Buffalo.
You wouldn’t know that both teams had played pretty tightly contested games just the night before judging by their performance in the first period. Few, if any, of the players on either team appeared sluggish. The Sabres and Leafs each had a handful of scoring opportunities on the opposing goalie, but Miller and J.S. Giguere kept the game scoreless throughout twenty minutes.
There were issues on both sides of the ice, however. The Leafs took three different minor penalties in the first period alone, with one being called just seconds after they successfully killed off another. Despite six full minutes on the man-advantage, Buffalo could not send the puck into the Toronto net even once.
The second period began with a goaltending change for the Leafs. Kyle Reimer took position in between the pipes as Giguere went to the bench with an undisclosed ailment.
Toronto broke the stalemate early on when Buffalo got trapped for too long in their own end. Phil Kessel found himself all alone with the puck for an instant, and fired it over Miller’s shoulder to put the Leafs up by one.
The Sabres put themselves at serious risk of falling behind by multiple goals after a pair of penalties early in the third period. Nathan Gerbe and Paul Gaustad both took minor penalties within 26 seconds of one another, leaving the Sabres down two men for one minute and 40 seconds.
Buffalo survived, but gave up the next goal in embarrassing fashion. While on the Power Play, the Sabres continued to mishandle the puck, and eventually Joey Crabb charged into the Buffalo zone with it. Even though two Sabres attempted to cover him, he still out-fought both and ended up slipping it behind Miller to put the Leafs ahead by 2. It was the 11th shorthanded goal that Buffalo has given up this year- the most in the NHL at the moment.
After going more than fifty minutes without a goal, Gaustad finally put the Sabres on the board with an abrupt, wild shot that flew straight under Reimer’s arm and into the Leaf’s net.
Unfortunately, the Sabres were never able to beat the Leaf’s netminder again. Even after an exciting final five minutes that was filled with scoring opportunities for Buffalo, Toronto skated off the ice as the victors.