See more MLHS in Google Add MLHS as a preferred source + Add As bizarre as it seems to write about a 21-year-old second-year player, most of the rest of the team needs to watch the tape of Easton Cowan in the first half of the third period.

Cowan was one of the few Leafs still actively trying to play the game rather than standing around and hoping the clock ticks down faster. He was actually moving his feet and tracking with his man through the neutral zone, multiple times disrupting Sabre entries. He turned a puck over on the forecheck, and he registered their only shot on goal in about 11-12 minutes of play.

The Sabres’ 4-3 tally is the kind of goal that happens when you’re spending too much time defending, which is frustrating in its own right, but the 4-4 Buffalo goal was just flat-out inexcusable from the Leafs. They had their structure in place through the neutral zone and gave up a mini odd-man rush versus Jake McCabe inside the left half of their defensive zone after Matias Samuelsson skated through them like traffic cones. I understand they were playing a lot of minutes in the third with the shortened bench (due to the unfortunate Tavares injury, dressing Zack MacEwen for some reason, stapling Gavin McKenna to the bench for some reason), but Jack Roslovic — who can’t let Samuelsson just breeze past him untouched — and William Nylander were on the ice for all of a couple of seconds before the Sabres skated through them like Walmart greeters. Defending a lead in the NHL, believe it or not, requires moving your feet and getting in the way of oncoming attackers. 

Usually, game reviews don’t start with an exasperated rant about the third period first, but it has to in this case, because the third-period approach, effort, and execution really spoiled what should’ve been a nice Leafs win in an important divisional game against a Sabres team missing Rasmus Dahlin.

The Leafs looked like the better team through 40 minutes and scored some pretty goals, including a stylish Kirill Marchenko hat trick. John Tavares was good before his injury, dominating the dot and winning battles, including a great effort along the wall to create Marchenko’s 3-2 goal. The top line tilted the ice on many shifts and scored a beauty 2.5 minutes into the game through Auston Matthews. Even the fourth line was getting in on the action, setting the table for Marchenko’s second goal with a heavy offensive-zone cycle shift. The PK continued to roll, and Colton Sissons made a great play coming directly off a kill, setting up Marchenko’s hat-trick goal from behind the net to make it 4-2 through two periods.

Jim Hiller (and his staff) deserves some credit for parts of those positives in the opening 40. The special teams are off to a great start, particularly the PK (I’d hate to see the team’s goals against number right now if it wasn’t). After watching a coaching staff try nothing and be all out of ideas for large parts of last season, it’s commendable that Hiller experiments in search of solutions when obvious problems percolate within the lineup. Moving Paul up a line — letting Tavares win the draws and battles on the walls, while Nick Paul assumes the center duties at points — was a worthwhile early-season experiment. Nylander and Matthews starting the game together was the right move.

But sitting on his hands again while the team died a slow death over yet another miserable period of getting absolutely tilted also falls on him to some degree. He’s sat and watched the second periods vs. Vegas, Colorado, and Utah, and the third period tonight, without calling a timeout once. Much of the defense’s struggles to make clean plays with the puck does not fall on him — it’s the hand he’s been dealt, with the personnel at his disposal and the injury to Chris Tanev — but the team is still Swiss cheese in the neutral zone and disorganized on breakouts too often, and it’s not helping the blue line’s cause whatsoever.

A 0-2-1 start against the division — 7-17-5 dating back to last season — makes a by-no-means-disastrous .500 stretch (3-3-2) feel notably worse. Much to work on ahead of a seven-games-in-11-days stretch starting on Saturday.

Post-Game Notes First, we have to lead with the hope that John Tavares is okay. That would be true regardless of his performance tonight, but it hurt extra that it happened in a game when he was playing as well as he was, with great plays on two of the Marchenko goals and an 11-for-13 night on the draw. After he was cleaned out late in the game against Ottawa, he clearly took that personally; he’s since gone a remarkable 42 wins-15 losses on the dot (74%). As we’ve talked about a lot in this space — granted, whether their center depth has allowed them to reasonably do it is another question — the idea of him taking draws then assuming winger duties makes a lot of sense for where his game stands entering his late 30s: still a beast on the walls, down low, and on the dot, but not as excellent at driving or controlling play through the middle of the ice over 200 feet. The first five minutes of the game were a true microcosm of the features and bugs within the Leafs’ current roster. At one end, the first line got off to a great start and was looking likely to pot one quickly — which they did, after an athletic play by Auston Matthews to catch an attempted clearance and then work a nice give-and-go between him and Roslovic. Down in their own end, Jake McCabe bobbled a puck for a turnover under no pressure whatsoever, Troy Stecher (who has largely been good, to be clear) fanned on one under no pressure, and then Nick Blankenburg overskated a puck bouncing out of the corner, leading to the 1-1 goal against. The forwards deserve scrutiny for their defensive support of the blue liners, but the defense clearly doesn’t support the forwards well enough with the number of unforced errors they’re making. Another small example of many in this game: After Marchenko made it 3-2, Morgan Rielly, under no pressure at all, threw a puck away to the other team in the neutral zone. Seconds later, Jack Quinn hit a post, and Sergei Bobrovsky rejected Matias Samuelsson on a backdoor play. Often this season, the Leafs will be building momentum and appear on the verge of taking a game over, only for either a dumb penalty or an unforced error/turnover by the D to hand momentum right back to the opposition. I often save my harshest criticisms for the forwards because I think the blue line is clearly under-talented/lacking in quality (it is what it is, to a degree, as it stands) and the forwards definitely aren’t, so it’s easier to focus on the forwards needing to do more to help out and mitigate some of the team’s vulnerabilities on the backend. But it is undeniably frustrating to watch this defense group right now, and it is their biggest area of need, clearly and to no one’s surprise. The Leafs went down to three lines of Nylander-Matthews-Roslovic / Blueger-Paul-Marchenko / Duhaime-Sissons-Cowan once Tavares left the game in the early third. Of course, the McKenna benching will dominate the storylines between now and Saturday’s game in light of the loss. I fully anticipated it would happen at some point, and in a vacuum, I am not at all against McKenna watching from the bench when appropriate. I’m not sure this was the game to completely lose him on the bench, though. There were a few late second-period penalties that factored in, sure. But they were down to 11 forwards from early in the third, and one of them was Zack MacEwen. They looked gassed (it’s rare to see Nylander look so tired late in a game and into OT). The veterans weren’t executing at all or even trying to push back and make plays with the puck. Hiller said it was the 12- or 13-minute mark in the third when things seemed to go wrong; to my eye, the shifts bookending Tavares’ injury much earlier in the third were clear warning signs that the team was starting to sit back and take on water. McKenna should’ve seen at least a shift or two; when he’s making mistakes right now, it’s not because he’s scared or overwhelmed by the moment, and when Hiller says after the game, “you have to find a way to make plays” under pressure, he’s someone who can. It’s a shame Kirill Marchenko’s hat trick isn’t the news dominating the headlines for the next 24 hours. It was long overdue, and the first two finishes, in particular, were really classy. The noise around his play made no sense for those either looking at the underlying numbers or watching the games closely. He hasn’t been perfect, and his recent road trip (until later in the Utah game) could’ve been much better, but over the preceding seven games overall, it was the definition of a “when one goes in, a bunch will follow” situation. The whole purpose of the Marchenko acquisition was to add another difference-maker who can drive a line at five-on-five, which Marchenko can do, and it lets them unite Matthews and —who are rolling together—without leaving nothing below them. We saw signs of how that might work in the first 40 minutes. Paul is off to a good start and is a handy player, but he isn’t a real 2C on a good team; Tavares is certainly a top-six player/producer but is not a line driver per se. If not that exact line, those types of line ideas become a lot more viable with Marchenko on the team. Silly early-season sample-size stuff here, but Marchenko is now on a 42-goal, 94-point pace. Sergei Bobrovsky needs to come up with one more save than he did tonight. You don’t expect saves on all of them, but pick one of the first three Buffalo goals. There were enough savable goals among the four to say he should’ve been able to keep it at three tonight. Game Flow: 5v5 Shot Attempts

Heat Map: 5v5 Shot Attempts

Game Highlights: Sabres 5 vs. Maple Leafs 4 (OT)