Nylander Remains Hot But Marlies Lose Again

These were two points that the Toronto Marlies couldn’t afford to give up, but unfortunately for them, they did just that. The ground they gained against the Adirondack Flames last week? Gone as quickly as it came, courtesy of a 5-4 loss tonight.

If we’re going to be honest about this, the start of the game is what really did Toronto in. Within ten minutes, Devin Setoguchi (who is, amazingly, still playing professional hockey), Max Reinhart, and Markus Granlund had all beat a combination of Antoine Bibeau to give the Flames a quick 3-0 lead. William Nylander broke up the momentum with his fifth goal of the season, but before the end of the period answered by Brant Harris.

Toronto started to crawl back over the next twenty minutes. Late in the second, Josh Leivo scored his ninth of the year, and seconds into the third period, Nylander picked up his second of the night. However, Granlund responded with his own second goal before the first minute had even ended. Ryan Rupert closed the gap one last time, but ultimately, the Marlies couldn’t come back.

Gotta give this one to young William Nylander again. Three goals and an assist in his last two games, and both of them were in “turning point” moments. If only the team was ability to fully take advantage of them. 

Unfortunately, Antoine Bibeau had a really poor showing in the first few minutes of this game, which cost him his night and took the Marlies too far out of it to ever recover from. You have to give them credit for pushing forward; they even outshot Adirondack 20 to 7 in the third period, but they didn’t get what they needed out of it. Regardless, it was a good, well rounded showing in a lot of other ways; something they need to take with them into Montreal to face Hamilton tomorrow. In the mean time, they fall back to five points out of a playoff spot.