In Toronto on Monday night, Frederik Andersen made 31 saves to help the Maple Leafs hold off the visiting Buffalo Sabres in a 5-3 win.
Frederik Gauthier struck for one and added an assist in the win.
“Yeah, probably my confidence is [as high as it’s been],” Gauthier said. “It’s my first full year here and it’s been working well so far. I’m just trying to keep building on my game every day and keep it going well. It’s important, every night we try to bring some energy, some momentum and tonight we found the back of the net a few times. It’s always nice to contribute offensively, as well.”
Kasperi Kapanen, John Tavares, Auston Matthews, and Tyler Ennisalso scored for the Leafs.
“We like our team, but we still think there’s a ton of growth from within,” Maple Leafs coach Mike Babcock said. “We think we can play a lot better and we look forward to that. We really feel we can play a lot better.”
A four-goal second period smothered the Sabres.
Jack Eichel scored twice including late in the first period to give the Sabres a 1-0 lead.
“I don’t know, we had seven or eight minutes of bad hockey where we let them get behind us and that was it,” Eichel said. “We just had to stop letting them get behind us. They’re a good transition team. We all know that. It’s something we scouted before the game, so you have to take care of the puck and whenever they get the puck, they’re looking to go. They had too many odd-man rushes in the second period and it cost us the game.”
Sam Reinhart also scored for the Sabres who are 1-4-1 in their last six.
“I really liked the way we started the game. In the first period we get a big power-play goal, outshoot them 16-6, [had more chances than] them 9-2,” Sabres head coach Phil Housley said. “We talked about expecting a push from them. But it’s not really what they did, it’s what we didn’t do.”
Buffalo dropped to 29-25-8 and are now six points back of the second wild card spot.
“We didn’t really like our first period and knew we had to be better if we wanted to get any points,” Andersen said. “Teams come in here and expect to bring their best game. We have to be able to match that from the beginning. Once we get going, I think we’re hard to match. We don’t want to be chasing every game.”
[WATCH: All Sabres at Maple Leafs highlights]
Carter Hutton made nine saves before getting the hook; he surrendered three goals before exiting the game.
“He’s played tremendous for us the last two games,” Eichel said. “He’s been such a key part of our team this year, so you can’t really blame [Hutton] for some of the stuff that was happening. He’s keeping us in most games that we’re in. They get a breakaway, they’re scoring their goals from right inside the hash marks. That’s on us, not [Hutton].”
Linus Ullmark came into the game and made 19 saves in relief.
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