The Toronto Maple Leafs are coming off a hard fought come from behind victory Saturday night against the Edmonton Oilers where Mitch Marner took the team on his back and led them to victory.
Monday night the Toronto Maple Leafs will take on the Buffalo Sabres for the third time this season with their most recent outing coming just under three weeks ago where Ryan O’Reilly was the stand out star with his first hat trick as a Leaf and first in almost two years.
The Leafs have won each of their first two games against the Sabres outscoring their divisional rival 11-5 in the process.
Both Mitch Marner and John Tavares have feasted off the Sabres as Marner has seven assists and the Captain has two goals and seven points in the two games.
Toronto Maple Leafs vs Buffalo Sabres
It appears that Matt Murray will start his second consecutive game for the first time since coming back from injury.
The veteran goaltender looked shaky at times against the Oilers as he surrendered four goals on 26 shots, two of those goals he would likely want back.
Murray started the first contest against the Sabres back on November 19 and he turned away 32 of 34 shots for the victory. He has a life time record of 6-1-1, with a 2.73 GAA and .918 Save Percentage against the Sabres.
Buffalo have fallen seven points out of the final Wild Card spot after looking to be making a push at making the playoffs for the first time since 2011.
Buffalo has suffered four straight losses, which included a loss on Thursday against the Dallas Stars where they surrendered ten goals.
They will be led by Tage Thompson who is in the midst of his first 40-goal season and is making a push for 50 as he is currently at 42 with 17 games to go. Thompson also sits sixth in the NHL in scoring with 86 points.
After having a quiet week with just two games in seven days, the Toronto Maple Leafs are starting a stretch of eight games in 14 days Monday night that includes a five game road trip over nine days.
They currently have a four point lead on the Tampa Bay lighting for second place in the Atlantic Division with two games in hand. The upcoming stretch includes a pair of games against the Carolina Hurricanes and a home game against the Colorado Avalanche on Wednesday night.
Mitch Marner recently jumped ahead of Rick Vaive all the Toronto Maple Leafs all-time scoring list to sit at tenth place. He will now charge forward at Ted Kennedy who leads him by 22 points for ninth place.