Marlies blown out by Lehigh Valley Flyers

So if you were coming here hoping to get some good news before being sad about the Leafs game tonight, you’re in the wrong place. While the Leafs were in Pittsburgh losing to the Penguins, the Toronto Marlies suffered one of their most catastrophic defeats in a very long time, falling 7-2 to the Lehigh Valley Phantoms.

The bleeding started early, as Taylor Leier opened up the scoring at the midway point of the first period by firing a wrister past Antoine Bibeau, despite the whacks and hooks of former junior teammate Brenan Leipsic behind him. Cole Bardreau followed it up with a net-crashing effort five minutes later, and after twenty minutes, the Marlies found themselves outshot by three and outscored by two.

The second period wasn’t much kinder to them. Twelve seconds into the frame, Greg Carey took advantage of a pre-existing powerplay and scored his sixth goal with the man advantage of the season.

Toronto did attempt to fight back, though. Byron Froese responded not much later with his sixth of the year, firing home a puck sent in his direction after Tobias Lindberg’s wraparound failed to make it through traffic. But the Phantoms kept going in the third, grabbing the bulk of their goals in the final twenty. Colin McDonald made the most of a poor rebound allowance by Antoine Bibeau, and while Milan Michalek brought the score within two once again, a second goal by Leier combined with additions from Radel Fazleev and Jordan Weal put the game far, far out of reach. 

Despite the huge score spread, the Marlies were only outshot by three. They did give up dangerous chances throughout, though, and Bibeau was far from a saviour, protecting the net from just 20 of 27 shots against. Toronto is still in a good spot despite the loss; their 8-3-0-1 record still leads the North Division, but it’s still far from the effort that they wanted. They’ll return to the ice of Ricoh Coliseum this weekend when they take on the St. John’s IceCaps for another pair of games.