Ryan McLeod was still unclear on whether or not he had scored his first career hat trick as he stood in front of his stall Wednesday night, some 15 minutes after the Buffalo Sabres’ 4-2 victory over the Carolina Hurricanes had ended.
He did get credit for the hat trick – more on that play and the debate it spurred in a bit. But in the moment, the result was reason enough for the veteran forward to smile.
“It’s a huge win for us,” McLeod said. “As a team, we’re trying to build, and that’s a good team we just beat.”
McLeod’s hat-trick goal with 24 seconds remaining put the finishing touches on a bend-but-don’t-break performance by the Sabres, who were coming off a loss to Seattle in their most recent game in which goals against compounded into a blown lead.
Buffalo led this one 3-0 through two periods on the strength of two goals from McLeod and another from Dylan Cozens, plus timely saves from Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen. Carolina – the NHL’s best team in terms of shot-attempt generation – answered with a push in the third.
The Hurricanes had 33 shot attempts over the final 20 minutes and, with goaltender Dustin Tokarski pulled for an extra attacker, cut the Sabres’ lead to 3-2 when Martin Necas buried a one-timer with 3:10 still left to play.
Sabres coach Lindy Ruff called timeout following the Necas goal, during which he reiterated the same message he’s been drilling in 5-on-6 practices since the Colorado Avalanche erased a late deficit 13 days ago: Keep attacking.
“We’ve talked about this and we’ve gone over it,” Ruff told his players. “Just go. Just go.”
“Stay calm,” McLeod said when asked about the message during the timeout. “We’ve worked on this the last little while and we know what we’re doing. I think that timeout really calmed us down and we were able to get the win.”
The Sabres hounded the Hurricanes and held them to one shot the rest of the way – which brings us to McLeod’s late goal.
The sequence began with a shot from Tage Thompson, taken on the empty net from deep in the Buffalo zone. The shot traveled the length of the ice, hit the left post, and rebounded slowly into the slot. McLeod – still able to tap into his world-class speed at the end of a 46-second shift – won the race down the ice and had a clear shot into the empty net.
Until he didn’t. Hurricanes defenseman Brent Burns chopped McLeod’s stick in half from behind, preventing the forward from getting his shot off. The slashing penalty against Burns merited a penalty shot – which, with the Carolina net empty, resulted in an automatic goal. Hats rained for McLeod, who had scored multi-goal games twice prior to Wednesday but never had a hat trick in his five-year career.
By the time McLeod returned to the dressing room following his postgame interview with TNT, the NHL’s official scorers were debating whether the goal should belong to Thompson, because McLeod had never actually touched the puck. They settled on awarding the goal to McLeod, who would have gotten the shot had it not been for the penalty.