The Buffalo Sabres keep finding another gear when the night looks lost. Down 4-2 entering the third period in Toronto, Buffalo scored twice in 2:11 to force overtime, then Owen Power beat Sergei Bobrovsky blocker side at 3:14 of OT to complete a 5-4 comeback win over the Maple Leafs on Thursday night at Scotiabank Arena.
Jack Quinn was the engine of the rally — two goals and two assists, plus a Gordie Howe hat trick after a second-period tussle with Troy Stecher. Quinn even rang the post twice in the second on chances that could have made the night bigger. Noah Östlund and Zach Benson each added two assists, and Mattias Samuelsson tied the game in the third on a give-and-go with Tage Thompson.
The comeback needed Dennis Gilbert’s unlikely heroics to start it. The journeyman defenseman, filling in on the third pair with captain Rasmus Dahlin still out, scored his first goal as a Sabre and his first for any team since Dec. 31, 2023 — the fourth goal of his career — at 10:05 of the third to make it 4-3. Samuelsson leveled it at 12:16, and Toronto — outshot 11-4 in the third — had no answer.
The Leafs’ night belonged to Kirill Marchenko, who scored all three of Toronto’s go-ahead goals for a hat trick — his first with the franchise — off two assists from John Tavares. Auston Matthews opened the scoring just 2:24 in, extending his points streak to six games. But Tavares left in the third after colliding with Josh Norris and did not return, and the Leafs’ bench shortened from there — Gavin McKenna, the 2026 first-overall pick, sat the entire third and OT.
In net, Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen stopped 26 of 30 for his third win, rebounding from the shootout loss in Montreal. Buffalo is now 4-3-1, having won four of its last five against Toronto, and banked two road points in a four-game Atlantic stretch — with a Saturday rematch in Montreal up next.