8/82: Friday, October 24 @ Buffalo Sabres

Final Score: Leafs 3, Sabres 5

Mattias Samuelsson scored twice to propel the Buffalo Sabres to a 5-3 home victory over the visiting Toronto Maple Leafs.

Samuelsson opened the scoring barely five minutes into the game. The Leafs would respond through the stick of William Nylander, his third goal of the season. Jiri Kulich and Auston Matthews would also score before the first 20 minutes finished.

Matthews’ goal came on the power play, an area that has been lacking to start the season.

Tage Thompson and Samuelsson with his second of the night (and season) made it a 4-2 game through two periods.

Another bright spot was Dakota Joshua scoring his first goal of the season, tallying it just under two minutes into the third.

But that would be it for the Leafs’ success. Alex Tuch scored a back-breaking short-handed goal with three minutes left to play.

Here are some other bright spots despite the loss:

Slowly but surely, the power play seems to be figuring it out. That said, short-handed goals against are never helpful.

The Leafs played a very physical game despite the loss, finishing with 30 hits to Buffalo’s eight hits.

Three points from the blue line (Brandon Carlo with an assist and Oliver Ekman-Larsson with two) is always encouraging for a team that often relies on the big sticks in the forward group.

The Leafs look for some payback tonight as they play the second leg of the back-to-back in Toronto tonight. 5pm EST puck drop. (Go Jays!)