TORONTO – By coach Lindy Ruff’s estimation, it happens at least twice each Buffalo Sabres game. Inevitably, heavy winger Beck Malenstyn makes a couple of under-the-radar plays, often paying a price physically.

“Plays guys are looking at that are not plays that get glorified in a game like a goal does,” Ruff said following Monday’s practice in LECOM Harborcenter.

Of course, Malenstyn, having scored four times this season, chips in the occasional goal. In fact, two of them rank among the Sabres’ prettiest.

In Thursday’s 4-2 win in Montreal, he torched a defender down the left wing before cutting to the net and beating Canadiens goalie Samuel Montembeault.

“Guys are just smiling,” Malenstyn said of his teammates’ reaction to his nifty short-handed goal. “Guys love it. I’m obviously not going to complain about it.”

He also scored a highlight-reel goal Nov. 23 by undressing Carolina Hurricanes star Sebastian Aho.

But most of the 6-foot-3, 209-pound Malenstyn’s contributions are what Ruff called “the little plays.”

“Like tracking down icings, the tracking back, the blocked shots,” said Ruff, whose Sabres close their five-game road trip tonight against the Maple Leafs at Scotiabank Arena. “Sometimes just getting the puck in deep under duress, he’s done a great job of that, too.”

In the third period of Saturday’s 5-0 win in New York, Malenstyn raced deep into the Islanders zone and absorbed a hit from Scott Mayfield behind the net to keep the puck in opposing territory.

“Every once in a while it’s an opportunity to not just let them go back, flow and attack you with speed when you can stall,” Malenstyn said Monday. “It just helps.”

Then there was Malenstyn’s critical block late in last Tuesday’s 5-3 win in Nashville. With the Sabres up one goal, he got in front of Nicolas Hague’s one-timer from the point.

The puck caught him on the outside of the kneecap – “Kind of hit that nerve there, and your whole leg just kind of goes numb,” he said – and he fell to the ice.

His sacrifice jolted the bench, and Ruff said everyone got on their feet and tapped their sticks.

Malenstyn needed to be helped off the ice, but once he reached the end of the tunnel, he said he began to get feeling back in his leg.

“That type of play is the last play you would show on the video today about winning hockey, about a guy putting it on the line to help preserve the game,” Ruff said Thursday. “He’s done that game in, game out.”

Shortly after Malenstyn’s gutsy block, center Peyton Krebs’ empty-net goal sealed the win over the Predators.

Malenstyn, 27, said much of the Sabres’ recent success – they’ve won three straight games and 18 of their last 22 outings – can be traced to everyone “diving into their roles and taking a lot of pride in it.”

He said when you feel the support from your teammates like he did following his block, “it makes it a little easier to go put yourself in front of those situations.”

“Guys are willing to sacrifice their bodies to be successful,” he said Thursday.

Malenstyn, a regular on the third or fourth lines, has established himself as the Sabres’ most consistent physical presence. Despite averaging just 11 minutes, 16 seconds of ice time per game, he has registered a team-high 180 hits, a gaudy total than ranks fourth in the NHL.

Krebs’ 120 hits rank second on the Sabres.

At his current pace, Malenstyn would record 291 hits over a full season, shattering his career-high 241 he recorded with the Washington Capitals in 2023-24.

Malenstyn began learning the rigors of a gritty, bottom-six role as a teenager with the Western Hockey League’s Calgary Hitmen. He said his coach, Mark French, who won the Calder Cup in the AHL with the Hershey Bears in 2010, ran the junior squad like a pro team.

So while Malenstyn had been a high draft pick in the WHL, he said “younger guys had to earn their ice time, earn their role a little bit.”

“I think it really helped my game,” he said. “It made me appreciate what you had to just to earn being in the lineup.”

When he turned pro, that experience helped him enjoy what he called “a pretty seamless transition.”

“I didn’t have to relearn it,” Malenstyn said.

The same thing happened during his first days in the NHL.

“It was a real easy transition for me again when I got those first call-ups to just kind of be able to clear your mind and play a real simple game that allowed me to be effective at that level, too,” he said. “And it didn’t feel like it was outside my comfort zone.”