Tonight, the Leafs ramp up the difficulty level a little and play against something closer to the real Buffalo Sabres in their home rink. It’s also the battle of the first overall picks as Auston Matthews meets Rasmus Dahlin for the first time of many, many games to come.
It will be hard to top last night’s festival of teenage enthusiasm, but the twenty-somethings jockeying for roster spots on the Leafs should make things interesting. Jake Gardiner makes his debut on his old pairing with Nikita Zaitsev, and may we never see Marincin-Zaitsev again.