Buffalo, NY (WGR 550) – The Buffalo Sabres played a very tight game on Tuesday against the Toronto Maple Leafs where the two goalies were the stars of the game, but they couldn’t find a way to win it.
The Leafs scored three goals in 3:04 including an empty netter by Auston Matthews for his 400th NHL goal and a 4-0 win.
The game’s No. 1 star Toronto goalie Anthony Stolarz picked up his third shutout in four games and has only given up eight goals in seven games. Buffalo had many Grade-A opportunities, but he was stopping one-timers from Tage Thompson and JJ Peterka as well as rebound attempts that it looked like he had no chance.
Jason Zucker had five shots on goal while Thompson, Peterka, Alex Tuch and Jiri Kulich all had four. Zucker was in no mood after the game for moral victories because he’s frustrated a five-game winning streak has turned into a four-game losing streak. The winger said they gave up too much at the end of the game after Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen held them in,
“We can’t be happy with 50 minutes, that’s all I’ll say to that.”
Buffalo had blown leads in three of the four losses and that Zucker knows this has to be figured out,
“That’s been the story of our year, so we’ve got to figure that out we’ve got to be better, we’ve got to challenge ourselves individually and as a team to make sure we’re fixing this come next year.”
Lindy Ruff was extremely upset after Matthews scored the empty netter. That’s because 35 seconds later the team quit on their goalie and allowed Nick Robertson to walk in alone on Luukkonen. Ruff said,
“I hated the fourth goal because he gave us a good game and you give up a goal, that goal pissed me off.”
Matthews had six shots on goal and was point blank open on five different occasions. Yes, Buffalo played well, but there were once again too many times the middle of the ice was wide open only for Luukkonen to come up huge.
For six to seven weeks this team played very well and won a lot of hockey games. It got them out of the Eastern Conference cellar and ahead of six or seven teams overall, but the last four games have shown that this is still a bad hockey team that has bad habits. Kevyn Adams and Terry Pegula can’t get mesmerized by those six weeks because the four game-losing streak to end the season shows there’s still plenty of work to be done.