Kirill Marchenko did not get a chance to savour his first hat trick with the Toronto Maple Leafs.
“I will remember this night for sure, but it’s so bad when we lose the game,” the 26-year-old said. “Winning is more important. And I kind of frustrated too, because it’s my mistake in overtime.”
Marchenko lost his man, Owen Power, and watched as the Sabres defenceman worked a give-and-go play with Jack Quinn before beating Sergei Bobrovsky to help Buffalo steal two points in Toronto.
“He just jumped by me and scored,” Marchenko said. “I will clean up that for sure ... We need to find a way [to] win these games. It’s so important for us.”
The Leafs squandered a two-goal lead in the third period to fall to 3-3-2 on the season and 0-2-1 against Atlantic Division rivals.
Marchenko put the Leafs in a prime position to beat the Sabres before overtime.
“He’s an elite skill forward,” Bobrovsky said. “His ability to score, it’s incredible. He got long reach. Those goals, it’s pure skill.”
Marchenko scored on a beautiful between-the-legs move during a first period power play. What was he thinking?
“Nothing, actually,” Marchenko told TSN during an intermission interview. “I wait pass from [John Tavares], it’s a good pass, and I just try to do what I can. I worked on this move a couple years ago and happy to use it.”
Marchenko added two more goals in the second period.
After Tavares won a battle along the boards, Marchenko fired a wrister past Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen from 35 feet out. Later, he one-timed a pass from Colton Sissons from the doorstep for his third goal.
“He’s moving his feet, getting to open areas and he’s using that shot,” said new linemate Nick Paul in an intermission interview with TSN. “Between the legs was pretty nice too.”
“You gotta give the guy a lot of credit,” Sabres coach Lindy Ruff told reporters. “I mean, he’s gifted. You give him an opportunity and, I mean, you look at the power-play goal he scored, it was a heck of a goal. I don’t like the way we played the third [Leafs] goal where he came off the wall. We’ve got three guys, they got two, we got them outnumbered and we let him come off the wall. He’s a good player, you get him inside the dots, he can score.”
After the morning skate on Thursday, Marchenko described his play this season as “fine, not awesome” and admitted he could be better. Marchenko had been stuck on one power-play goal through the first seven games despite playing mostly on the top line beside Auston Matthews.
Head coach Jim Hiller has preached patience with Marchenko, who the Leafs acquired on the eve of the season in a blockbuster deal with the Columbus Blue Jackets. Marchenko signed a six-year, $75-million extension following the trade.
Marchenko has hit the scoresheet in all but one game this season, but was on the wrong side of the plus-minus statistic and lacked a signature moment .... until Thursday night.
“I mean, those were big-time goals, right?” Hiller said. “He’s got that dynamicism, for sure, and we’re going to need that. You knew it was going to come sooner or later, right? You can’t be that talented and not score.”
Hiller may have helped get Marchenko going by dropping the Russian to the second line with Paul and Tavares on Thursday.
“Three solid veteran players,” the coach told TSN in a pre-game interview. “Good players. There’s a nice mix there. There’s skill, there’s size, you know, John and Paulie both can play centre, both can take faceoffs. We’re just looking, throughout the lineup, for combinations we can trust shift after shift and we just haven’t had that. We’ve had too much up and down.”
The hope is Marchenko is now on the way up.
“Of course, it mean a lot,” he said. “Score hat trick for Toronto Maple Leafs, I will remember it for my full life and it’s a good memory for me for sure. Again tough lose, but memory was good and it so help me to adapt here and just try to learn from that. And if I score, like, three goals, maybe again I have a chance to score another one and just forget what’s happened in the past. Just look on the future right now. But, obviously, it’s a great, great memory for me.”
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Marchenko’s momentum stalled early in the third period after Tavares exited the game following an awkward collision with Josh Norris.
“You never want to see that, obviously,” said Matthews. “But, you know, we’ve got to keep playing. Guys got to step up. You know, more opportunity, obviously, you know, down a man, and the lines are going to get shuffled up a bit. But obviously hoping for the best as far as John. I didn’t really see what happened, but obviously we’re all thinking about him.”
Tavares has been incredibly durable during his nine-year run in Toronto, missing just 22 games in the regular season. He was the only Leaf to suit up in all 82 games last season.
Hiller did not have an update on Tavares after the game. The team is off on Friday with the next media availability set for Saturday morning ahead of a game against the New York Islanders.
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Buffalo outshot Toronto 12-4 in the third period.
“At the 11-, 12-minute mark, they just started coming, and we didn’t have an answer,” Hiller said. “We made some mistakes in those moments. I know it’s hard when you’re on your heels, but you just have to be able to have a little poise and somebody has to make a play. Give them credit. They put us on our heels and we just couldn’t make two plays in a row. Consequently, we got what we got.”
The Leafs also struggled for significant stretches during their recent 1-1-1 road trip, but those dips happened in the second period.
“In that moment, when it’s going against you, you’ve just got to find a way,” Hiller said. “Really, it’s not one play. Sometimes, it’s two plays in a row because one play doesn’t get you too far. Two plays in a row gets you up the ice, and we had a difficult time making two in a row.”
The Leafs are allowing 3.38 goals per game, which ranks 23rd in the league. This despite the fact the team has allowed just one goal while shorthanded and leads the NHL with a 96.2 penalty kill percentage.
Bobrovsky felt his team was giving the Sabres too much space in the final period.
“You either win or you have a lesson to learn and get better,” he said. “I think it was a good lesson for us. I think we give up lots of chances 5-on-5 and I think it can be clean up. As we go, as we learn, those mistakes can be fixed and we move on. We have a really good team here. Really skilled, really competitive guys and, yeah, we still give up a little too much in the third. But it is what it is, you know. It’s hockey. They have a good team too. They had a good push. And, yeah, we reset, refocus, work on our mistakes and get better.”
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Matthews wasn’t sure how the Leafs let Thursday’s game get away.
“Yeah, I don’t know,” the captain said. “Honestly, I thought we actually had a good process in the third. I thought we were doing the right things, taking care of the puck. And, you know, they’re a good team, got some good skill over there. You know, point shot with traffic goes in. And then a little bit of a breakdown, I think, or miscommunication on a 3-on-2, 3-on-3, and it’s in the back of your net.”
Toronto’s top line was on the ice for the tying goal. Jack Roslovic and William Nylander appeared to be caught flat-footed as Mattias Samuelsson and Tage Thompson easily sliced through the neutral zone with a give-and-go play which ended with Samuelsson beating Bobrovsky with a shot from the slot.
“I mean, those are things that obviously you want to clean up,” Matthews said. “But, you know, I didn’t think, like, our process was bad in the third. I thought we took care of the puck for the most part and were making smart decisions with it. Just a couple breakdowns ended up in the back of your net.”
Matthews opened the scoring and liked how his line operated. It was the first time all season that Nylander started with the top unit.
“I thought we were good,” Matthews said. “I mean, I thought we really started well and were on top of it, forechecked really well. I mean, there was parts, I thought, in the second half of the game where there just wasn’t a whole lot going on. But, you know, I thought we competed hard and worked on both sides of the puck for the most part and created some good opportunities there that didn’t go in.”
Nylander and Roslovic each landed five shots on net to share the team lead.
“I think it’s just simple,” Matthews said. “Simple for everybody, every line. It’s a really simple recipe to have success in this league. You just got to work hard, got to play the game the right way and good things typically happen.”
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Rookie Gavin McKenna did not play the final half of the game.
Hiller benched the 18-year-old winger in the final half of the second period when the Leafs took a pair of penalties and the coach was leaning on more experienced players in a bid to get to the intermission with a lead. The coach admitted that he should have played McKenna early in the third period.
McKenna started the game on a new-look third line beside Sissons and Easton Cowan. McKenna and the 21-year-old Cowan are the two youngest players on the team.
“Those two guys have to pick their spots,” Hiller told TSN in a pre-game interview. “They’re both very talented but they have to pick their spots so I’m looking for maturity out of young players. So, let’s see if they can do it.”
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The Leafs made a trade with the Vancouver Canucks on Thursday afternoon, acquiring centre Aatu Raty in exchange for forwards Jacob Quillan and Brandon Buhr, who had started the season in the American Hockey League.
Hiller was an assistant coach with the Islanders when the team selected Raty in the second round of the 2021 draft.
“I had him in a training camp and really liked him,” Hiller recalled. “Had really good hockey sense. Really, really nice kid back then. He had made a really good impression on me, I remember.”
Raty, who cleared waivers earlier in the week, reported to the Marlies.
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Lines to start Thursday’s game:
Nylander - Matthews - Roslovic
Tavares - Paul - Marchenko
McKenna - Sissons - Cowan
Duhaime - Blueger - MacEwen
McCabe - Raddysh
Rielly - Stecher
Ekman-Larsson - Blankenburg
Bobrovsky
Stolarz