vs Buffalo

Another heart-attack special at the Scotiabank Arena. Of course Tage Thompson treated the defense like a collection of orange traffic cones twice, because why wouldn't he? Nicholas Robertson actually managed to find the back of the net, a refreshing departure from his usual routine of skating really fast into a corner. When Matias Maccelli put the blue and white up early in the second, I almost allowed myself to feel a flicker of joy. Naturally, the universe corrected itself by letting Bowen Byram and Thompson remind the crowd that holding a lead is strictly against the core tenets of being a Leafs fan.

Dakota Joshua saved the city from a collective meltdown by tying things up in the third, a nice gesture for a guy figuring out the layout of the locker room. The game limped into overtime, where John Tavares buried the winner to send everyone home slightly less miserable than usual. We managed to get outshot 26-23 at home against Buffalo, but two points are two points. Don't start planning the parade route through downtown; we all know this win is just a clever ploy to build up a surplus of hope specifically so it can be harvested and destroyed during the playoffs.