Maple Leafs' defense might be short-handed vs. Sabres

The Toronto Maple Leafs will be out to end a three-game losing streak Saturday night when they open a five-game homestand against the Buffalo Sabres.

The Sabres should be highly motivated after taking a 5-1 home loss to the Philadelphia Flyers on Friday night.

The Maple Leafs lost 3-2 in a shootout against the host Boston Bruins on Thursday. Toronto also lost 3-2 in overtime to the host Nashville Predators on Oct. 28 and 4-1 at home to the Los Angeles Kings on Tuesday -- a contest that brought boos from the crowd.

The Maple Leafs played an improved game in Boston.

"The guys worked hard," Toronto coach Sheldon Keefe said. "You want to get two points every time you come into a building, but it's a tough game and to come away with one and a chance to get a second in a shootout, we'll take it."

Toronto lost defenseman Timothy Liljegren to a lower-body injury when he was tripped by Brad Marchand in the first period.

"He's going to miss, it looks like, significant time," Keefe said. "We're not going to know for sure until we get home and get a picture. It's not short-term at this point."

The Maple Leafs already were without defenseman Jake McCabe (groin).

Toronto's William Nylander extended his point streak to 10 games this season -- and 12 regular-season games dating back to 2022-23 -- when he assisted on Mitchell Marner's goal at Boston.

Maple Leafs goalie Ilya Samsonov, who struggled to open the season, faced 40 shots against the Bruins and made 38 saves.

"He was really strong (Thursday), he should feel really good about his game," Keefe said.

Keefe was not so pleased with forward Tyler Bertuzzi, who started the season on the first line but did not play well. By the third period on Thursday, Bertuzzi had been relegated to the fourth line.

"(Bertuzzi) just has to simplify his game," Keefe said. "(Thursday) we had a very simple plan. He failed to execute that, so other guys had to take his place."

The Sabres, in their Friday game, trailed 3-0 after the first period and lost defenseman Mattias Samuelsson to a lower-body injury in that stanza. He did not return.

Buffalo trailed 4-0 before getting its lone goal from Henri Jokiharju early in the third period.

"I thought there was enough generated to get breaks, and the question would be, 'Did you earn the break?'" Sabres coach Don Granato said. "We could have scored, but let's face it, we didn't play the way we needed to play."

Before the game against the Flyers, the Sabres promoted forward Lukas Rousek from the Rochester Americans of the American Hockey League. He had two goals and four assists in eight games with Rochester this season after logging 16 goals and 40 assists last season there.

"It's an opportunity for us to see what we have in our organization with two guys who were really good in camp (Rousek and Brandon Biro) and have progressively looked good in Rochester," Granato said. "Now is that window of opportunity to get a greater look at what we have depth-wise."

Granato said he likes Rousek and Biro because "they have a lot of detail to their game. ... They're very responsible players, yet they have enough skill to make a play when there's a play to be made."

Neither figured in the scoring on Friday.

Rousek, 24, played two games with Buffalo last season and scored his first NHL goal on March 27 against the Montreal Canadiens.

Biro, 25, played one game for Buffalo in 2021-22 but didn't play in the NHL last season. In his 2023-24 debut, he scored twice against the Philadelphia Flyers on Wednesday.