End-to-end battle ends badly for Leafs


The best advice the Sabres were probably given heading into last night's tilt against Toronto was thus: don't give the the Leafs a chance on the power play.

End-to-end battle ends badly for Leafs


Conversely, the Leafs were probably handed a sage piece of information that likely went as follows -- don't give the Sabres a chance, period.

Fortunately for the fans at Buffalo's HSBC Arena, neither side was listening. So, the 18,690 witnesses on hand last night were entertained with 60 minutes of thrilling, end-to-end hockey, full of power plays and blind passes that ultimately resulted in 7-4 win by the Sabres.

When it was over, Leafs coach Paul Maurice took a deep breath and provided Leafs TV with the following assessment:

"That," Maurice said, "was a really exciting game."

Indeed it was, and one that was still up for grabs until Toronto goalie Andrew Raycroft made a gaffe at 14:41 of the third period that would result in the game-winning goal.

The error came when Raycroft stepped behind his goal to play the puck. Unaware that defenceman Tomas Kaberle had also arrived to contend with it, the goalie fired it up the boards toward a waiting Jason Pominville. The Buffalo forward fired the disc toward the net, which a scrambling Raycroft managed to fend off. But the Sabres' Daniel Paille was Johnny On-the-spot, dealing it back to an unattended Daniel Briere in the slot, who easily fired it home over Raycroft, who by then had lost his feet.

That goal, Briere's second of the night and 10th of the season, made the score 5-4 and, after a couple of empty-netters later, still stood as the winner.

Not surprisingly, the goalie appeared to take it hard.

"It was a bad break," said Maurice. "I [told Raycroft], 'Don't throw yourself under the bus for a bad break.' "

In the beginning, the breaks were all going the Leafs' way.

The Sabres took three straight minor penalties -- one for tripping and two for hooking -- before the match was three and a half minutes old. Armed with a power play ranked fourth in the NHL on the road, the Leafs took full advantage.

Darcy Tucker, sitting in his familiar off-wing spot at the side of the goal, tallied first at 2:19 and Kyle Wellwood followed just 1:25 later -- with both goals coming off setups from Toronto's quarterbacking duo of Bryan McCabe and Kaberle.

But on a night when 5-on-5 hockey was a rarity, the Leafs soon found themselves in penalty trouble of their own.

Alex Suglobov kicked off Toronto's penalty parade at 7:17 of the opening frame, followed by McCabe, Hal Gill and McCabe again. It allowed the Sabres to register a pair of power-play goals by Maxim Afinogenov and Briere, and one from Jiri Novotny that was even strength in name only, considering Gill had only stepped on the ice.

Tucker, with his second of the night, tied things at 4-4 at 7:19 of the third when he crashed the net and corralled the rebound off a shot Buffalo goalie Ryan Miller never saw. But that was all Miller would allow.

The Sabres goalie, as if having learned his lesson, stoned a lurking Tucker twice at the side of the net, despite the Leafs having pulled Raycroft, and with Jaroslav Spacek off for hooking in the final few minutes of the game.

But like a good hockey fan, Maurice was not unpleased.

"We lost the game, but we competed," he said of the defeat. "I'd rather see us play like that -- play hard, but make mistakes."


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