Marlies fall to Penguins in shootout

Not to be outdone by the Leafs’ tradition of honoring teams that won so long ago that they’re irrelevant to the organization today, the Toronto Marlies made a point to honour the 1960 Memorial Cup winning Toronto Marlboros. Despite the team playing at a completely different level, not to mention 54 years ago, it was still a pretty cool pre-game ceremony. Plus, we got to see a ceremonial faceoff involving two of the best jerseys outside of the NHL, which is always nice.

Also, hockey! Yes, it was a game of shots and not punches, but one that Wilkes-Barre/Scranton managed to get a little bit more out of, edging the Marlies by a score of 4-3 in the shootout.

The game started off with some fairly even back and forth play, with shots being taken whenever possible and little hesitance in the process. Each team failed to execute on their first powerplay attempt, and their second goes at it only lasted five seconds a piece. With two minutes left in the first, Scott Harrington’s wrist shot from the point beat Drew MacIntyre to give the Penguins the lead after one.

Early in the second, the Marlies found themselves in penalty trouble once again, killing off penalties to Korbinian Holzer and Trevor Smith. In the middle of the second kill, Jerry D’Amigo broke up a play and sent Kenny Ryan off on a breakaway, which lead to his fourth goal of the season. From then on, the Penguins took over, taking 19 of the period’s 23 shots, including one that squeezed past Drew MacIntyre and into the stick blade of Tom Kostopolous to give the lead back to Wilkes-Barre, with a minute and a half remaining.

The Marlies picked up the pieces and got their act back together in the third. Firing on all cylinders, the team pulled off a late game rally, fuelled by a top-shelf snapshot by Spencer Abbott and a deke-to-backhand by captain Trevor Smith. It seemed like the game had gone from a lost cause to a victory, but with 12.9 seconds left, Nick Drazenovic put home a cross crease one-timer to send the game to overtime.

The extra five minutes contributed little, so to a shootout we went. Trevor Smith found the back of the net, but he was the only Toronto player to do so, while MacIntyre allowed two of the Penguins’ four shooters to end the game in their favour.