The Toronto Marlies and Albany Devils played game two of their first round Calder Cup playoff series today in Albany, with the Marlies evening the series at a game apiece with a 6-2 win.
To begin with, there was a scoring change on the empty net goal from game one. Nick Lappin was added as the lone assist on the goal.
In today’s game, Kerby Rychel began the scoring on the power play for Toronto at 2:56 of the first period. He had assists from Seth Griffith and the goaltender, Garret Sparks.
The A-Devils would tie things up on a goal from Kevin Rooney at 18:25 (assists to Blake Pietila and Steve Santini). But before the third period was out, Toronto would retake the lead, courtesy of an old friend.
Sergey Kalinin, the former Devil, scored unassisted for the Marlies at 18:36 of the first, and that opened the floodgates for Toronto.
In the second period, the Marlies got goals from Frederik Gauthier at 4:15, Colin Greening at 6:38 and Andreas Johnsson at 16:09 on the power play. Albany got their second goal from John Quenneville at 8:59 of the second (assist to Blake Coleman).
Toronto would add one more from Trevor Moore at 4:35 of the third period to cap off the victory.
Overall on the night, Toronto was 2-for-7 on the power play with six shots while Albany was 0-for-5 with two shots on goal.
The goalie duties were split for the A-Devils, with Mackenzie Blackwood playing the first 26:38 and making nine saves on 13 shots faced. Ken Appleby played the final 33:12, making eight saves on ten shots faced. For the Marlies, Sparks also split time with his back up. He made 16 saves on 18 Albany shots in the first 39:53. He also notched the assist. Kasimir Kaskisuo played the final period, stopping all three shots he faced.
The A-Devils got into some penalty trouble late in the game, as Miles Wood got tossed with a ten minute misconduct penalty with about thirty seconds remaining in the game for unsportsmanlike conduct.
The three stars of the game were all from Toronto: Gauthier was named the game’s first star – with a goal and an assist; Justin Holl with three assists and the third star was Rychel with a goal and an assist.
The series reconvenes on Wednesday from Toronto’s Ricoh Coliseum for game three.
Moving from a team of Devils prospects to a team with two of them, the Mississauga Steelheads took on the Peterborough Petes in game two of their OHL playoff series tonight as well.
This was a really different hockey game to the one in Albany earlier tonight. The Steelheads won the game, 3-0, to take a two-games-to-none lead in the best-of-seven series.
Devils’ prospect Nathan Bastian assisted on Jacob Moverare’s goal at 6:18 of the second period (he has the secondary, while Vili Saarijarvi had the primary) and on Owen Tippett’s tally at 11:45 of the second (he again had the secondary while Trent Fox had the primary). Spencer Watson added an empty net insurance goal to make it 3-0 at 17:51 of the third. Ryan McLeod had the lone assist on that goal.
In goal, Matthew Mancina got the shutout win while making 24 saves for Mississauga. For Peterborough, Dylan Wells made 49 saves on 51 Steelhead shots. Wells, for his effort in the loss, was named the game’s third star while Mancina was the second and Tippett the first.
Where things got a little dicey was when the Petes had a complete meltdown in the third period. At 11:57. Christopher Paquette was given a five minute major plus a game misconduct for blindsiding. Things went downhill from there.
At the 13:41 mark of the third, the Petes’ Alex Black was given an unsportsmanlike conduct minor plus a ten minute misconduct penalty for unsportsmanlike conduct, while at the same time Peterborough’s Zach Gallant was given a ten minute misconduct for throwing his equipment. All in all, the Petes ended up with almost a half hour in penalties plus Paquette’s game misconduct. The Steelheads went 0-for-5 on the power play and the Petes were 0-for-4.
Lost in all of that was the game that Bastian had. Two points, a plus-2 and three shots on goal, plus winning 6 of 19 faceoffs he took. Not a bad night for the Devils’ prospect.
Michael McLeod, the other Devils’ prospect playing for Mississauga, was a plus-1, had eight shots on goal and was 11-for-21 in the faceoff circle.
Game three takes place on April 24 from Mississauga, Ontario. It should be a doozy.