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Marlies Go H.A.M on Bulldogs

By Jeff Veillette

Feb 13, 2015, 22:49 ESTUpdated:

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The Toronto Marlies are creeping their way back into the playoff picture. As such, they needed a big game tonight against their arch-rivals, and boy, did they ever get it, winning 4-2 over the Hamilton Bulldogs in this weekend’s lone matchup.

The Rundown

While the first period was pretty back and forth, the Marlies managed to strike first. With three minutes remaining in the period, Matt Frattin scored his fourteenth of the season to give Toronto the lead.

The second period saw the second line go to work. Connor Brown followed up on a nice setup from William Nylander to widen the game to 2-0, and just five minutes later, Brown struck again to make the lead into a three goal differential after forty minutes.

Hamilton wasn’t going out of this game without a fight, though. TJ Hensick snapped Christopher Gibson’s shutout with five minutes to go, and in the last minute of the game, David Carr added a second Hamilton goal. Thankfully, Frattin scored his second of the night between the two, snapping a long snipe from distance to regain sole possession of the team lead in goals for.

Blue Warrior

Gotta keep the Frattin vibes going here. He took over a quarter of Toronto’s shots tonight, putting seven pucks on net, and constantly looked like a threat out there. If only he could piece this together in the league above…

Notes

Christopher Gibson stopped 33 of 35 shots. He had a spectacular night, even with the last-minute goal considered.
Byron Froese also looked pretty impactful, and put up an assist on the second Frattin goal.
Toronto only took four penalties tonight, and all of them came in the final sixteen or so minutes. In fact, this game had a forty minute run of even-strength play, which is pretty nuts. Toronto couldn’t convert on either powerplay opportunity, but killed off their three disadvantages.
The Marlies play next Sunday, against Binghamton. It’s a 3PM start.