BURSTTORONTO — The Toronto Maple Leafs were searching for 60 minutes of great hockey.
They’ll settle for a timely two-and-a-half against a fragile foe.
For that is all the home side needed on a sleepy, sluggish Sunday evening to flip the script on a Buffalo Sabres squad freefalling in the shadows of the mighty NFL Bills.
Showing no early signs of urgency in front of their farm-system goaltender or to avenge the mistakes of Saturday night, the Maple Leafs were down 2-zip before registering a shot on the visitors’ net.
They trailed 3-1 past the halfway mark.
All signs pointed to the Timbits intermission skaters earning the night’s loudest cheers.
But, alas, these are the sad-sack Sabres, losers of 10 straight (three in extra time), without a tax break or a palm tree or a saviour in sight.
“I’m almost lost for words. It’s on me to solve this,” Buffalo coach Lindy Ruff said.
“This is as tough a solve as I’ve been around, but it’s on me to get these guys in the right place to win a hockey game. Nobody else. Just me.”
And these are the Maple Leafs, who, for all their offensive woes of late, still dress high-end game-breakers that don’t need many dominant shifts to spin an outcome on its head.
So what if they didn’t start either of the first two periods on time?
The Leafs can smash turbo mode for a stretch and rally for a 5-3 comeback victory against a fragile rival.
“Momentum, man,” Max Domi said. “That’s the game of hockey, right?”
In a span of 2:31, during their come-to-life moment in Period 2, Nick Robertson sniped one after four straight healthy scratches; hardworking John Tavares scored twice; and Toronto’s inconsistent power play looked threatening again, cashing in on both ends of this weekend’s back-to-back.
“We’re just looking for a good 60 minutes,” defenceman/realist Jake McCabe had said a couple hours before puck drop. “We haven’t really put together a 60-minute hockey game in a while that we’ve been proud of.”
Well, they’re still looking.
But they banked a couple standings points and gleaned plenty of encouragement from their first five-goal effort in December and some production from multiple lines.
Domi, moved to centre, snapped both his 27-game goal drought and 16-game assist drought. Domi’s celebration spoke volumes, but the player downplayed the goal’s significance post-game.
“It feels good, trust me,” Berube said. “I mean, he’s not happy he hasn’t produced or scored. And we need him to. But we need him to play that style of the game that he played tonight. That’s the difference for me.
“Way more engaged.”
Berube’s new-look third line of Bobby McMann–Domi–Robertson was deadly and fast.
“The three of us as a line talked, and we decided that our strength is speed and skating,” Domi explained. “So, all three of us tried to do that to our best of our abilities. And then both those guys were absolutely flying tonight.”
The recalled Dennis Hildeby settled down after a shaky start to lock up the win in what would have been the injured Anthony Stolarz’s start — and was confident enough to take a stab at an empty-net goalie goal in just his third-ever start.
And the Maple Leafs as a whole followed that second-period burst with a diligent and detailed hard-checking final frame, so as not to squander that fate-shifting two-and-a-half minutes.
Tavares snapped home a half-court insurance goal late for three the natural way.
Hats rained.
The better team eventually showed up and won.
“It was a great third period. You go out there and just check and don’t give ’em much,” Berube praised. “Our leaders stepped up and really did a good job tonight.”
The team did enough to earn their day off Monday, but a more complete effort will be imperative Wednesday in Dallas.
Fox’s Fast Five
• McMann has looked great since returning from his 17-day break with a sore groin.
The power forward led all skaters with five shots on net Saturday in Detroit and followed that up with a pair of assists and a plus-3 rating Sunday.
• In a battle of AHL goalies, Buffalo recalled Devon Levi for his first NHL start in a month.
With the rest of the club flying in from Washington on a back-to-back and not checking into a Toronto hotel until 2 a.m., the team reasoned having Levi make the short trip from Rochester, N.Y., in advance would give them the edge of a fresher body in net.
Ruff was non-committal about the prospect of Levi staying up with the big club.
“Played a heckuva game for us,” Ruff said of the 22-year-old’s 36-save performance.
• The Bryan McCabe interview on last week’s Spittin’ Chiclets is a must-listen for fans who followed the Leafs from 2000 to 2008.
The defenceman reflects candidly on the highs and lows of life under the microscope, detailing the fallout from his own-goal overtime winner for the Buffalo Sabres early in his final season for Toronto:
“They turned on me at the drop of a dime,” McCabe tells the podcast. “Overtime winning goal on my own team.”
He’ll always remember the Toronto Sun front-page headline (“Bryan McKlutz”) and can still hear the boo birds every time he touched puck for a breakout in 2007-08.
“It was misery. It sucked the life out of me. My house was getting egged. I was getting hate mail,” McCabe says. “It was the hardest year of my life.”
The power-play bomber got so depressed, he questioned whether he’d play hockey again — only to be rejuvenated in Florida and out of the spotlight.
“I needed to get out of here just to save my life. It wasn’t fun anymore,” McCabe says. “That being said, I wouldn’t trade my time in Toronto for everything.
“I think everyone should play in a hockey market like that. It’s a special thing.”
• Berube flipped William Nylander onto Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner’s top line mid-game. (That’s $35.9 million worth of forwards barrelling at you.)
Matthew Knies joined John Tavares and Max Pacioretty’s second unit, which the coach used to match against Tage Thompson’s heavy line and free up Matthews’ group.
“I wanted to kind of loosen those guys up a little bit and give them some different looks,” Berube said. “And it worked out.”
• Stolarz’s “day-to-day” injury will keep him out a week, minimum.
The starter was placed on IR retroactive to the lower-body injury he suffered Thursday against the Ducks.
Berube didn’t want to comment on the goalie’s status, so the next update is expected Tuesday.
Joseph Woll should start Wednesday in Dallas.
