Toronto Maple Leafs come from behind to beat Buffalo Sabres 4-3

This article was last updated on April 16, 2022

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Toronto Maple Leafs come from behind to beat Buffalo Sabres 4-3, Here is the game summary and main points.

Tuesday, January 17, 2017

GAME SUMMARY         |           EVENT SUMMARY        |           FACEOFF SUMMARY

ON THE SCORESHEET

Leo Komarov put the Maple Leafs on the board at 0:32 of the second period with his eighth goal of the season. The Maple Leafs are 6-0-1 this season when Komarov scores a goal.

Matt Martin scored the second Maple Leafs goal of the night and his third goal of the season at 8:28 of the second period. The Maple Leafs are 4-0-1 this season when Martin records a point.

Auston Matthews gave the Maple Leafs a 3-2 lead at 9:45 of the second period with his 22^nd goal of the season. Matthews has 13 points (6-7-13) over his last 10 games.

James van Riemsdyk gave the Maple Leafs a 4-2 lead at 13:04 of the third period on the power play. With the goal, van Riemsdyk extended his point streak (3-9-12) to eight games, which is a new career long (Previous: 7 games [4 goals, 5 assists] – Dec. 21, 2015 – Jan. 6, 2016).

Nazem Kadri registered the primary assist on Komarov’s second period goal. Kadri has nine points (6-3-9) over his last eight games.

William Nylander recorded the secondary assist on Komarov’s goal. Nylander has points (1-2-3) in three consecutive games.

Zach Hyman had the primary assist on Matthews’ second period goal. Of Hyman’s 14 assists this season, nine have been primary assists.

Connor Brown also had an assist on Matthews’ goal in the second period. Brown has eight points (5 goals, 3 assists) over his last seven games.

Mitch Marner registered the primary assist on van Riemsdyk’s third period power play goal. Marner has seven assists over his last four games and leads the Maple Leafs in assists (26).

Nikita Zaitsev recorded the secondary assist on van Riemsdyk’s power play goal. Zaitsev’s 16 assists place him in a tie for the team lead in assists among defencemen (Gardiner, Rielly).

Frederik Andersen made 23 saves. Toronto is 6-5-5 when Andersen stops 20-29 shots in a game.

SHOTS FIRED

The Maple Leafs outshot the Sabres by a 32-27 margin in all situations and by a 30-22 margin at 5-on-5.

Toronto had a 61-46 edge in shot attempts in all situations and a 59-40 lead in shot attempts at 5-on-5.

Auston Matthews led Toronto with five shots on goal.

Nazem Kadri and Auston Matthews each registered eight shot attempts.

HOME SWEET HOME

The Maple Leafs are 11-7-2 on home ice this season.

Toronto’s all-time record is 74-100-18-11 in 203 games against the Sabres and 46-38-12-5 in games played in Toronto.

Toronto is 15-7-3 against the Eastern Conference this season and 10-4-1 against the Atlantic Division.

The Maple Leafs continue their homestand on Thursday, Jan. 19 vs. the New York Rangers.

Tonight’s attendance was 19,122.

MAPLE LEAFS LEADERS

OF NOTE…

At 10:16 of the first period in tonight’s game, Toronto requested a Coach’s Challenge to review whether a Buffalo player interfered with goaltender Frederik Andersen before the puck entered the net. After review, the Referee confirmed no goaltender interference infractions occurred before the puck crossed the goal line. The original call stood – good goal Buffalo Sabres.

The Maple Leafs have scored at least one power play goal in six consecutive games.

Toronto has not allowed a power play goal against in three consecutive games, killing their last eight penalties.

Tonight’s win is Toronto’s first this season when trailing by at least two goals in a game.

Toronto is 4-9-3 when their opponent scores first this season.

The Maple Leafs are now 1-8-1 when trailing after one period and 16-1-6 when leading through two periods.

Toronto has a 6-9-5 record when outshooting their opponents.

Maple Leafs rookies combined for six points (1 goals, 5 assists) in tonight’s game. Toronto’s rookies had combined for 161 points (60 goals, 101 assists) in the Maple Leafs’ previous 41 games.

Tyler Bozak was 11-for-14 (79%) in the faceoff circle tonight. Bozak won 83 percent (5 won, 1 lost) of his offensive zone faceoffs and 80 percent (4 won, 1 lost) in the defensive zone.

Jake Gardiner played 29:24 for the Maple Leafs tonight, which is a new single-game high for a Maple Leaf skater this season.

Auston Matthews won 72 percent of his faceoffs (13 won, 5 lost) and was 6-for-9 on draws in the offensive zone (4-for-6 vs. Jack Eichel, 2-for-3 vs. Ryan O’Reilly).

Morgan Rielly left tonight’s game in the first period (Lower Body Injury) and did not return.

UPCOMING GAMES:

Thursday, Jan. 19 vs. New York Rangers, 7:30 p.m. (TSN 4, FAN 590)

Saturday, Jan. 21 vs. Ottawa Senators, 7:00 p.m. (Hockey Night in Canada, TSN 1050)

Monday, Jan. 23 vs. Calgary Flames, 7:30 p.m. (TSN 4, FAN 590)

Wednesday, Jan. 25 at Detroit Red Wings, 7:00 p.m. (Sportsnet, TSN 1050)

Thursday, Jan. 26 at Philadelphia Flyers, 7:00 p.m. (Sportsnet Ontario, FAN 590)

POSTGAME QUOTES:

HEAD COACH MIKE BABCOCK

On Morgan Rielly’s status:

We’ll know more tomorrow after he gets looked at.

On rebounding after the first period:

I don’t even know how slow [our start] was, we shot it to them, they shot in our empty net and they scored bad goals. I don’t know how slow that is, but what I liked about [Andersen] is he shut the door and gave us a chance to win the game. It wasn’t a good start for Freddy and I didn’t think we were jumping great either, I didn’t like the start. I liked that we were resilient, stuck with it and found a way to win the game.

On the impact of the absence of Rielly:

A lot, obviously. I thought Gardiner and Zaitsev were really great tonight, stepped up. I thought [Hunwick] had a solid game. Actually, all of them were pretty good. We didn’t spend a ton of time in our own zone, which is positive. [Rielly] is a huge factor. We’ve had lots of success this year with no injuries. Our medical staff has done a real nice job, but injuries wear you down. What happens when you get injured is you play fewer guys more and it usually leads to more. We’ve got to manage this well. I don’t know if he’s out a week or 10 days or a month. I don’t have a clue.

On if there is a timetable for Martin Marincin’s return:

No.

On the team’s resilience leading to wins:

You just try to play right, you try to start on time. I’d rather be up every single time, but it didn’t go like that tonight. You try to control what you control. We just talked about how there’s lots of hockey left. This is how they’re playing, this is how we’ve got to play to win, get playing. Once we got playing right I thought things went our way. I didn’t like the way we played their third goal, there’s no way they should have ended up on the inside at our net. We could have done a better job on that. Other than that, I thought we were pretty solid.

FREDERIK ANDERSEN (24 SAVES, WIN)

On trailing 2-0 after the first period:

I think those things happen once and a while and you’ve just got to reset and fight back. In a locker room like that, you look around the locker room, you look at each other and you know you want to assure each other that we can fight back. I think we did really well obviously.

On if he has any routines to reset after a tough period:

No, just kind of breathe a little bit, be a little hard on myself, maybe be a little bit more focused. I think I did well today.

On the team’s resilience after the first period:

That’s a really good thing to see. We want to show that we can come back too. No lead is safe and we did a good job today in cleaning some things up. Both me and everyone else battled a little bit harder and we got some lucky bounces too going to the net. It was good to see.

AUSTON MATTHEWS (1 GOAL, 8 SHOT ATTEMPTS)

On matching up vs. Jack Eichel:

It’s fun. You go against good players and it kind of raises your compete level. I thought it was a good game by us. We kind of dug ourselves a hole but we were resilient down 2-0, coming back into the game and closing it out. It’s definitely a positive sign for us moving forward.

On how much he has worked on faceoffs:

Quite a bit. Not just working on it but I think talking to guys like Bozak and Kadri who have been in the league for a while, been centremen here for a while and looking at video, studying the opponent. It’s been pretty important. It’s a big part of the game, starting with the puck there on the faceoff. I definitely want to continue to improve on that.

On how much he knew about Eichel from playing him in the past:

Not too much. I think we actually just played each other once our whole life. He was at [Boston University] and I was with the [United States] national team. He’s a strong player, he moves well, he’s strong on the puck so he’s tough to contain. Any time you go against a guy of his calibre you have to be aware of where he is on the ice.

JAMES van RIEMSDYK (1 GOAL, 5 SHOT ATTEMPTS)

On how many times the move he used to score has worked:

A couple of times, I can probably remember a few of them. It’s always nice to score one in a win. Obviously we’ve got a big game to get ready for on Thursday.

On Rielly leaving the game in the first period:

I haven’t heard anything as far as what the word is with him but he’s a key part of our team. You see how many minutes he plays and the situations he plays in so hopefully we get some good news on him.

On what has led to his point streak:

I think in particular our power play has been clicking pretty good. We’re all finding that chemistry with each other and playing off each other very well on that. Sometimes you get some good bounces and you can capitalize on those also. You just try to ride the wave as long as it’s here.