LEAFS GET SMACKED

A 5-0 drubbing at the hands of their cross border rivals, the Leafs got ripped by the Buffalo Sabres. It was a combination of turnovers, penalties, bad defense, and just no passion.

Offensively, the Sabres were led by a natural hat-trick from their leading goal scorer Tomas Vanek, who picked up goals 30, 31, and 32. Two of the three goals were scored on the power play.

The Sabres could’ve gotten more as they were given 9 power play opportunities worth 15 minutes. The Buffalo power play looked solid as ever, and had the Leaf defenders standing around. The Sabre players were basically allowed to pass the puck around with ease, and not get interrupted by a Leaf player.

The Sabres team was a recipient of some bad defensive play from the Leafs. That showed throughout the game, with absolutely no heart, no passion, no nothing, from the Leaf players. The Toronto players just didn’t bring it tonight, and they got handled. The Buffalo players took full advantage of a weak effort from the Leafs, and showed their skill, and drove to the net with ease.

As for Justin Pogge, who was only making his third career start, once again got no help from his team and was hung out to dry. Unlike the6-1 loss to the Minnesota Wild, Pogge played a solid game with 27 saves, and was not at fault for any of the goals. Every goal the Sabres scored either came off a bad defensive zone break down, or turnover. And as shocking as this may sound, the 5-0 score was actually low for the Sabres, because the Leafs would’ve lost by more had it not been for Pogge, who came up with at least four solid saves, that could’ve easily been goals.

Right off the bat, the Leafs were outplayed and the Sabres set the tone early on. Just 2.23 into the game, the Sabres controlled the play, had the Leafs scrambling, and Tim Connolly scored on an easy tap in right in front of the net. John Mitchell let Connolly go to the front of the net untouched. That was Connolly’s eighth goal in his last eight games.

After a fantastic toe save on Drew Stafford, Justin Pogge was beaten on beautiful deque by Stafford, as he undressed Mike Van Ryn, and scored top shelf.

The Toronto team looked really fatigued, and it showed big time. The Sabres had this game all locked up after twenty minutes, and just had fun after that. And even if the Leafs tried to get something going, they couldn’t. Either Ryan Miller stoned them, en route to his second straight shutout and tenth win in his last thirteen starts, or the Leaf players just screwed up on their chances. The chances for Toronto were very low too, as they barley tested Miller with 16 weak shots on goal.

Even on the three power plays the Leafs had, they still couldn’t get anything going. It was just a bad game overall, and as a fan, tough to watch. Every game is becoming harder and harder to watch now, especially when the Leafs have given up four or more goals in the past five games, which can now be six.

After the first period, Tomas Vanek took over the game, scored his first of three goals off a rebound on the power play. His second goal, which came in the third, was just a dirty shot that was a perfectly placed slap shot right off the post. To complete the trick, he scored a tap in on a 5 on 3 advantage, that was worked very nicely on some nice passing around a stagnate defensive triangle.


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