"It's a lot of fun. I love playing on this team, I love these guys in here, and to go in and to work with them and battle with them means the world to me," Tuch said. "I missed it, that's for sure."
Tuch scored a pair of third-period goals to hit the 30-goal mark for the first time in his career. He buried a feed from Tage Thompson 3:39 into the final period that knotted the score at two apiece and later added a power-play tally on a nifty feed from Jeff Skinner that proved to be the game-winning goal.
"What a pass by Skinny. He actually wrote it on the puck, and he gave it to me. In quotes it says, 'What a pass,'" Tuch said "Playing with those guys, it's been a lot of fun. They're two great guys off the ice, too. We have a lot of good chemistry out there. We're just having fun. It showed tonight."
The Sabres, much like Tuch, needed the first 20 minutes to find their legs. Buffalo was outshot in the first period but tilted the ice in their favor to the tune of a 17-3 shot advantage in the second period. At one point, the Maple Leafs went 17-straight minutes without a shot.
"We've made defending a greater focal point for us. I think our guys recognized tonight ways they could impact it more and more as the game went along," head coach Don Granato said. "The first was build that foundation of defending, especially in this building."
The Sabres have seen their fair share of bounces against them recently. Another unfortunate bump allowed Toronto to take an early lead when Auston Matthews pounced on a loose puck and shot it past Anderson as the third man in on a 2-on-1 rush.
"Tonight was important for us because we played really well the other night and didn't get a win and didn't get the reward of the work," Granato said. "We've talked a lot about the work being defending, defending the right way, and playing the right way. Tonight, it wasn't working on the scoreboard halfway through the game but sticking with the process as they started."
It's as cringeworthy as clichés go, but the Sabres are taking the home stretch one game a time; particularly following a recent rough patch. Getting caught up looking at the standings can spell disaster for a young team fighting for a playoff spot, and perhaps nobody understands that more than Tuch.
"That's the mentality, it really helps," Tuch said. "If you're able to just not look at the standings, not look at what other teams are doing and focus on yourself and your next opponent, it allows you to play your best games."
Jack Quinn and Dylan Cozens each scored for Buffalo while Owen Power (0+2) and JJ Peterka (0+2) also had multi-point games. Craig Anderson made 25 saves for the Sabres as they snapped a four-game winless streak.
"That was the beauty of tonight. Guys were dialed in and calm the whole way through," Granato said. "It's 60 minutes so you can't ride ups and downs and you have to stay on objectives that you laid out, believing that they're going to come through.
"Tonight, I think the entire group was calm. Craig Anderson-like."
