Vinnie Hinostroza scored two goals and assisted, while Peyton Krebs scored twice. The Buffalo Sabres beat the Toronto Maple Leafs by 5-2 in Sunday’s Heritage Classic outdoor match.
Tage Thompson scored an empty-net goal, while Craig Anderson saved 36 in the Sabres win at Tim Horton Field. This is the home of the CFL Hamilton Tiger-Cats.
Auston Matthews, Toronto’s NHL-leading goal scorer, scored his 45th goal. Ondrej Kase scored a second goal. Petr Mrazek saved 31.
Hinostroza broke a tie with a shot at the corner from a sharp angle at 5:16 in the third period, his 10th of this season.
Krebs was at 4-2 with 6 minutes left. The puck reached Mrazek as the Leafs goaltender had lost his net on a bizarre play that held up in video review.
Thompson’s 2:25 remaining in regulation, short-handed goal was enough to seal the deal. Fans bundled up in temperatures of 19 degrees for the game. Crews had to remove snow from the ice several times before warmups at Steeltown’s first NHL regular-season match since March 1994. The flurries subsided after the action began in front of a sold-out crowd of 26,119.
The Leafs wore dark blue jerseys to pay tribute to the Toronto Arenas, one of the franchise’s earlier iterations that played between 1917 and 1919. While the Sabres wore cream colored threads.
The scoring was opened by Kase 40 seconds into the second half when he shoved William Nylander’s rebound past Anderson.
Buffalo’s response was just 41 seconds after Hinostroza took Timothy Liljegren from him and gave Krebs food to bury his fifth.
At 2:57, the Maple Leafs took the lead again when Matthews shot his 45th. It was Anderson’s shot that went through Matthews. This allowed Matthews to tie Anderson’s career record of 47 goals.
The Sabres tied the game at 10:53, when Hinostroza’s pass in front was blocked by T.J. Brodie and Toronto took it in their net.
After a poor performance in which he allowed four goals and 12 shots, Mrazek was pulled in Arizona’s 5-4 overtime loss.
Mrazek started ahead of Erik Kallgren, rookie with No. Jack Campbell, goaltender, was undergoing a rib injury.
NOTES: Anderson won both his outdoor starts in 2014, 2017 with Ottawa. Mrazek won his only action in the elements in Detroit in 2016. Brodie was credited with an assist on Toronto’s second goal, his 300th point in his career. Before the game, Canada’s Olympic-winning women’s hockey team won gold in Beijing. Artur Cholach, a Ukrainian defenseman from the Ontario Hockey League’s Barrie Colts, dropped the puck for Wayne Gretzky in the ceremonial faceoff.
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Maple Leafs: Dallas hosts Maple Leafs on Tuesday night.
Sabres: In Edmonton on Thursday night.
