Marlies Vs. Americans Series Preview

Thursday night the Toronto Marlies began their journey for the Calder Cup.

Having finished second in the Western Conference, they have home ice advantage, but this doesn’t change the fact that their 1^st round opponent is the Rochester Americans, a team the Marlies had some trouble with during the regular season.

Rochester finished with a 3-4-3-0 record against the Marlies this season. 4 games out of 10 went to overtime, 1 of them ended in a shootout and in none of them was any team able to win by more than just a goal. Interestingly enough, the Marlies won 3 games in the home series and came out on top 4 times out of 5 in Rochester.   

Here’s some key information about the upcoming series.

22/10/11 Rochester 4-5 Toronto OT

18/11/11 Toronto 2-1 Rochester

19/11/11 Rochester 2-3 Toronto

13/01/12 Toronto 2-1 Rochester OT

28/01/12 Rochester 2-1 Toronto

08/02/12 Rochester 3-4 Toronto

03/03/12 Rochester 2-1 Toronto

04/04/12 Toronto 2-3 Rochester SO

30/03/12 Toronto 5-4 Rochester OT

31/03/12 Toronto 1-0 Rochester

Game 1: Thursday, April 19 at 7:00 p.m. at Ricoh Coliseum
Game 2: Saturday, April 21 at 3:00 p.m. at Ricoh Coliseum
Game 3: Monday, April 23 at 7:05 p.m. at The Blue Cross Arena
Game 4: Wednesday, April 25 at 7:05 p.m. at The Blue Cross Arena*
Game 5: Saturday, April 28 at 3:00 p.m. at Ricoh Coliseum*

– Top 5 scorers

             Player                        Pos      GP    G     A      P      +/-

– Finished the season 7^th in the Western Conference with a 36-26-10-4 record (86 points)

– Head-coach Ron Rolston will make his debut in the AHL play-offs

– Phil Varone finished first among rookies with 41 assists in the regular season and 12^th in the league overall

– Goalie David Leggio was voted as the Americans’ MVP of the season by his teammates. He also is 3^rd in the AHL with 54 games played.

– Rochester’s powerplay is 26^th in the AHL at 15.0%

– Rochester’s penalty kill is 23^rd in the league at 81.4%

– Americans put Daniel Catenacci and Kevin Sundher on roster after their respective CHL teams got eliminated from the play-offs.

– Top 5 scorers

                                           Player                   Pos       GP    G      A     P      +/-

                    93                Mike Zigomanis                          C                68        19         42        61         +11

– The Marlies finished 1^st in their division and 2nd in the Western Conference with a 44-24-5-3 record (96 points)

– Toronto earned its 3^rd postseason berth in the last 5 years. First since 2009

– Joe Colborne and Nazem Kadri won respectively the Reebok/AHL Player of the Month rewards in October and November. Ben Scrivens was names the best goalie of the league in March

– Ben Scrivens had the best goals against average with 2.07 in the AHL this season. He also played 12 games with the Leafs

– The Marlies had the best penalty kill in the league (88.7%)

– 7 days prior to the opening series the Marlies called up from the Reading Royals (ECHL) 4 players: Kyle Neuber, Kenny Ryan, Matt Caruana and Mark Owuya. Jay Rosehill also joined the team.