Kaskisuo posts first AHL shutout in Marlies blowout win

After giving up seven goals in the third period in their last game on Saturday, the Toronto Marlies needed to come out and have a commanding bounceback game, both for the standings and for their own confidence. They did just that, and they did so in spades, exploding for six goals on the Rochester Americans.

Toronto started their wave extremely early, as Tobias Lindberg travelled much of the length of the ice and whipped a backhand past Linus Ullmark to open the scoring less than two minutes into the contest. He was quickly followed by both Justin Holl and Mike Sislo, who made things look easy by burying their 6th and 12th goals of the season respectively before the first half of the first period had even passed by.

Seth Griffith added to the pile with five minutes to go in the period, which brought the lead to 4-0, but also stopped progress for a bit. Andreas Johnsson had legitimate chances late in the first and early in the second, but a flubbed attempt on an empty net and a quick whistle on a scramble meant that both of his chances would result in nothing. That didn’t mean Toronto was done, though. Midway through the third period, Griffith added another goal, and with 43 seconds to go, Trevor Moore sealed the deal with this (potentially offside) beauty:

On the other side of the ice, Kasimir Kaskisuo, who was recently called up from the Orlando Solar Bears, had his second consecutive impressive night, stopping all 30 shots he faced. The shot count tonight was lopsided at 30-18 Rochester, 26-10 of it coming in the back 40 periods, though score effects likely came into play. No matter the case, Kaskisuo ensured that the Amerks would have no chance of getting back in it.

With the win, the Marlies improve to 34-26-4-1 on the season, and now are just 0.001 off of second place Albany in points percentage in the divisional race. Looking ahead, the team now has a three-in-three weekend to deal with, facing Binghamton on Friday, Springfield on Saturday, and Syracuse on Sunday.