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The Maple Leafs finally found another gear offensively in the second half of this game, firing 31 shots on goal and scoring three unanswered (plus an empty netter) to defeat the Buffalo Sabres 5-3.

Your game in 10:

1.   The Leafs got off to a nightmare start, conceding twice inside three minutes after the opening puck drop.

For the second straight game, a decent first shift — the Leafs‘ top line got the puck in deep and generated a little bit of zone time — was undone by an early Toronto penalty. This time, the Leafs didn’t get the kill.

Chris Tanev took a borderline interference penalty as he made sure he wasn’t beaten down the ice coming out of the offensive zone — a double whammy because it took arguably the team’s best PKer off the ice. Sure enough, the goal was scored on Tanev’s side of the zone, which Philippe Myers was tending to with Tanev in the box.

Wondering if Tanev blocks Jack Quinn’s shot — Tanev is as good as anyone in the league at it — is a counterfactual that isn’t worth spending any time on. What is worth pointing out is that this was a very stoppable shot for Dennis Hildeby, as it beat him short-side and wasn’t exactly labeled for the corner. That’s the kind of save the Leafs‘ regular goaltending tandem has made look routine all season long.

2.   Just a minute and a half later, it was 2-0.

Jake McCabe looked to bring numbers into the rush and needed to get back after Matthews ran into a dead-end in the corner, but Tanev was back, and McCabe recovered. McCabe went down to block the Tuch shot after a pass into the high slot but couldn’t get a piece of it, and it looked like Hildeby overplayed this a little bit to his right and was slightly off his angle.

The 2-0 hole wasn’t ideal, to say the least, but this is a badly struggling Buffalo team with an AHL call-up in net, so I was actually more curious than anything else to see if the Leafs could find another gear offensively now that they needed to push for offense from early in the game, especially against a team they should absolutely be able to score on. In past regular seasons, the Leafs could erase this kind of deficit against this sort of team in a flash, but it’s been a more laborious task creating offense this season through 30 games.

3.   In his return to the lineup, Nick Robertson drew a team-leading 10th penalty shortly after the 2-0 goal, but the top unit wasn’t up to much, while the second unit generated a few scrambles in front towards the end of the man advantage.

A second power-play opportunity emerged a few minutes later after Simon Benoit leveled JJ Peterka and drew a retaliatory slashing call. This power play was much better from the top unit, and while they didn’t score, it definitely wasn’t the momentum killer the power play has often been for the team when at its worst this year.

In fact, coming off of the PP, the Leafs were stringing together waves of offensive-zone pressure in the build-up to Max Domi‘s breakthrough goal.

4.   Notably, Domi picked up the primary assist on five of Robertson’s goals last season. There seems to be real chemistry between the two, so I liked the adjustment of shifting Domi to the middle and inserting Robertson on his right wing after a rough game for McMann – Minten – Domi in Detroit, knowing Bobby McMann was individually effective vs. the Red Wings and can help elevate the line.

When McMann intercepted a pass inside the offensive blue line in the final five minutes of the first period, the line went to work. McMann fired a shot from a good position, Domi set up a Rielly look from behind the net, and Robertson recovered a puck behind the goal line before sending a between-the-legs pass out front. Domi finally got a bounce to go his way for his first goal of the season in his 23rd game, breaking an unthinkable 16-game pointless slump.

Dallas will be a much better test of the team’s depth on Wednesday, but regardless, it was nice to see a line other than the top six get the Leafs going in this game. Domi has been taking a lot of flak in the online discourse (some of it deserved), including after a bad game for his line in Detroit last night, but he’s played reasonably well in three of four games since returning from injury. Adding a couple of legitimate, established top-nine NHLers back to the lineup (McMann, Domi) makes a world of difference.

Matchups against the likes of a Dennis Gilbert – Jacob Bryson pairing are ones an offensive-minded third line like McMann – Domi – Robertson should be able to take advantage of, so it was nice to see the Leafs finally exploit a matchup down the lineup (and there was more to come from this third line).

5.   With the Leafs down 2-1, the first 10 minutes of the second period were pretty concerning from the Toronto perspective. The Leafs had little going on offensively, and shots were 15-11 Buffalo when the Sabres extended the lead nine minutes and change into the period.

It was unclear what Oliver Ekman-Larsson was reading on the play initially, as he took a strange route at the offensive blue line, which briefly parted the middle for JJ Peterka to attempt to race away. However, OEL did recover in time to steer Peterka away from the net.

From there, Morgan Rielly sort of just looped around instead of stopping on the play as Peterka turned back, and the camera view from behind the net facing down the ice showed the full picture of the danger developing in the second wave. The Sabres made a partial change as they rushed up ice, and three Buffalo attackers were skating into the zone without another Leaf backchecker in sight. At the end of their shift, Tavares was lingering at the offensive blue line, hoping for a quick change of possession and counterattack/breakaway opportunity (which might’ve transpired, as the Leafs could’ve killed the play quickly), and Nylander was heading to the bench for a change.

Jack Quinn took a pass from Peterka as the trailer, and a skilled forward attacking downhill on a stationary forward playing defense (Pacioretty) in the middle of the slot is rarely a good situation for the defending team. Quinn made a nice little move to change the angle on Pacioretty and Hildeby before ripping it far-side. It clipped Hildeby’s arm on the way in.

The Rielly-OEL pairing has now been outscored 11-10 at five-on-five after this goal, to go along with really underwhelming underlying numbers. A big part of the design of this pairing is to exploit some offensive opportunities behind the McCabe-Tanev matchup pair (similar to Esa Lindell-Tanev freeing up Thomas Harley-Miro Heiskanen, the latter of whom went off offensively in the playoffs in Dallas), but neither is producing much offensively when together.

We saw Berube/Van Ryn turn more often to OEL-Tanev, Rielly-Myers, and Benoit-McCabe in the second half of the game.

6.   On the heels of the Detroit loss, the discourse around this team threatened to turn a little ugly for the next 48 hours, as the Leafs were down 3-1 to a Sabres team that hasn’t won since November 23 (!).

For me, it wasn’t so much that they conceded three in 30 minutes to the Sabres; frankly, I think Woll or Stolarz would’ve had this game at 1-1 (at the worst) if they were in the net, and Buffalo also isn’t a bad offensive team. It was the lack of a credible, sustained offensive threat in the 10 minutes before the 3-1 Buffalo goal against one of the worst defensive outfits in the league (who had a same-day AHL call-up in net). The Leafs were pacing for 20 shots on goal when the third Buffalo goal went in, less than 24 hours after they fired just 24 on net in a loss to Detroit despite trailing for about 40 of the 60 minutes.

The Leafs flipping this script, starting with a bottom-six goal followed by a power-play goal, was just what the doctor ordered. They ended the game with 41 shots on goal.

7.   Before the Leafs’ flurry of goals to flip the game, Craig Berube flipped wingers in his top six, uniting Nylander with Marner and Matthews while shifting Knies down with Tavares and Pacioretty.

Berube mentioned wanting to free up the Matthews line from the matchup against Tage Thompson in search of a spark. That’s not exactly a ringing endorsement of his top line’s current play, and they didn’t register a shot in five minutes of five-on-five time tonight.

It is noteworthy that after tonight, Knies – Matthews – Marner sits at just 11-10 in five-on-five goals. There are clearly plenty of reasons to believe this line could be a dominant force at five-on-five, but it’s not yielding the team a big enough advantage to justify it right now, given it’s the team’s top LWer, top C, and top RWer loaded on one line.

It’s also true that Knies – Tavares – Pacioretty isn’t a real matchup line that will stand the test of time against superior opponents to Buffalo, though, so it’s not like we’re onto something permanent here. For tonight’s purposes, it made me think of this recent Spencer Carbery quote:

Carbery: “In my time here, I always appreciated that [Sheldon Keefe] would do a pretty good job of getting Willy, Auston, and Mitch on the ice at the same time three or four times a game. That wasn’t any genius plan that Keefer had. You have three really good players, so get them out on the ice. You can look like a really good coach doing that.”

The adjustment/opportunity seemed to fire Nylander up; on his first shift with Matthews and Marner, he threw his second recorded hit of the season — a reasonably hard one on Jacob Bryson on the end boards.

8.   A few minutes later, Bobby McMann applied a great forecheck to cause a turnover, leading to a point shot that created a rebound that evaded Domi, who had an empty-net tap-in if he could’ve corralled the bouncing puck. Seconds later, the third line sparked the team for the second time in the game.

Domi lifted Jack Quinn’s stick at the offensive blue line to recover possession and break into the zone, displaying patience with the puck before picking out McMann, who slid it over for a nice three-way passing play finished off by Robertson.

Real top-nine NHLers making actual skilled plays for goals on the team’s third line. Refreshing.

9.   The new Tavares line (now with Knies) built on the momentum, drawing a penalty courtesy of Knies. For the second time in two games, the Leafs’ top unit broke through on the power play, and both goals were created or scored by Auston Matthews, who stunningly had just one power-play goal to his name before this weekend.

After winning the faceoff, the Leafs owned the puck in the zone but were mostly stuck on the perimeter until Matthews worked his way up high for a back-and-forth with Nylander that he one-timed in off of Tavares’ leg.

The Matthews one-timer has largely been missing in action this season, but we’ve seen a few recent examples of it now where he’s started the PP shift down low/at the net and then fanned out to open up for one-time looks. We’ll see if they keep looking for it as something of a go-to play for a top unit that often hasn’t had a coherent plan of attack with Matthews in the lineup this season.

Just a minute later, a jumbled-up post-power-play line put the Leafs ahead for good, as Toronto kept pouring it on. When a loose puck popped out on the right side of the zone, Chris Tanev activated, got his head up, and sent a really nice pass into the high slot to Tavares as he came off the bench. Tavares ripped one by Levi, with McMann applying the screen in front.

Quietly, Tanev has six points in his last 10 games, and there are some quality offensive plays in that mix — a beauty of a stretch pass for a Tavares breakaway, a nice goal jumping up and ripping it by Andrei Vasilevskiy, a good shot-for-tip, and this nice primary assist tonight. The offense is more the gravy on top with him, but he’s truly doing it all for the Leafs right now and is pacing for the second-best offensive season of his career (24 points).

10.   The most impressive part of this game from the Maple Leafs’ perspective was their third period with the lead. They owned a whopping 75% of the shot attempts, 87% of the expected goals, and outshot Buffalo 19-7.

Similar to the game against Anaheim, while they didn’t put the other team away despite ample opportunities to do so, they also didn’t give the other team much of a sniff, thanks to owning the puck all period.

Dennis Hildeby made one of his better saves of the game (on Kulich) before Buffalo pulled their goalie with two minutes and change remaining. John Tavares cleaned out Cozens in the faceoff circle before finishing his hat trick into the empty net for his 15th of the season. Tavares won five of six defensive-zone draws in this game.

The Leafs have now won 100% of games (15-0) when leading after two periods, and it’s not just the goaltending; they are third in the NHL in share of high-danger chances at five-on-five when leading (54.2%), and they are hovering inside or around the top 10 in xGF% and shot share when leading as well. If they can find their top gear offensively at five-on-five a little more frequently, those are extremely promising indicators.

Game Flow: 5v5 Shot Attempts

Heat Map: 5v5 Shot Attempts

Game Highlights w/ Joe Bowen & Jim Ralph

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