With a little offense this season, the Buffalo Sabres might have been more competitive this campaign.
On Monday night, Chad Johnson got support and made 38 saves to backstop the Sabres to a 5-3 win over the visiting Toronto Maple Leafs.
“This team can obviously beat anybody and any team can beat anyone, you just have to play the right way,” Johnson said. “Everybody has to buy in. It’s not about one player on the team or anything like that. It’s about a collective group, the five guys on the ice playing a certain way. It just shows we can beat anyone.”
Sam Reinhart, Jason Pominville, Ryan O’Reilly, Zemgus Girgensons, and Johan Larsson scored for the Sabres.
“We did get a couple of bounces tonight, but I thought overall we stuck to what we do when we have success,” Pominville said. “We did it [in a 2-1 overtime win at the Tampa Bay Lightning]. We did it [in a 4-1 win against the Boston Bruins]. It kind of slipped away maybe [in a 4-1 loss at the Florida Panthers], but we got right back into it today. We got a start, stuck with it, and found a way.”
For the Leafs, it was their fourth straight loss as they dropped to 39-22-7.
“We came out aggressive,” the Leafs’ Nazem Kadri said. “I thought we played well off the bat and had an all-around solid road period in the first. … A couple of unlucky breaks and deflections in front, and it costs you the game.”
Leo Komarov struck for two goals for Toronto and Mitchell Marner added a single marker in the loss.
“It looked to me like we had the puck and we were controlling the play, and when they fired at the net, it hit off something and went in our net, and we couldn’t keep it out of our net,” Leafs head coach Mike Babcock said. “Towards the end, we end up chasing the game and they played hard and we didn’t get enough done.”
[WATCH: All Maple Leafs vs. Sabres highlights]
Frederik Andersen made 19 saves in taking the loss.
“I just thought that we skated all right, I thought we had the puck a ton, I didn’t think we gave up that much,” Babcock said. “In the end, though, the puck went in. It’s real simple: You’ve got to outscore the opponent and we’ve got to find ways to win games. I’m not much into moral victories. I’m more the puck is dropped and you’ve got to get the job done. We didn’t get it done.”
You must be logged in to post a comment.