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Marlies Clobber A-Devils in Game 2

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.

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A-Devils Win Game One, 3-0

The Albany Devils kicked off the 2017 AHL Calder Cup playoffs at home at the Times Union Center with a 3-0 win over the Toronto Marlies in game one of their first round series.

Ben Thomson scored at 16:22 of the first (assist to Seth Helgeson), John Quenneville scored unassisted on the power play at 13:03 of the second period and Brian Gibbons scored unassisted into an empty net at 19:23 of the third period to round out the scoring for the first matchup.

In goal, Mackenzie Blackwood made 27 stops on 27 shots faced. He was named the game’s first star. Thomson was the second while Quenneville was the third, each with a goal. Quenneville also led the team with four shots on goal.

Toronto’s Garret Sparks made 20 saves on 22 A-Devils shots.

On the power play, the Marlies were 0-for-4 while the Devils were 1-for-5 with three shots on goal.

Game two takes place on Saturday from Albany, New York with a 5 PM puck drop.

Over in the OHL, the Mississauga Steelheads began their third round series against the Peterborough Petes. This one was a little bit closer, with Mississauga taking the game 5-3.

Michael McLeod had four points, including a goal and three assists in being named the game’s first star.

Owen Tippett got the scoring started in the only goal that McLeod did not factor into at 12:57 of the first period. Steven Lorentz and Nikita Korostelev (on the power play) would put Peterborough up 2-1 in a ten minute span early to midway through the second period.

But Spencer Watson scored at 14:08 of the second and from then it was the Steelheads’ game to lose. McLeod had an assist there and an assist on his brother, Ryan’s power play goal at 19:07 of the second.

In the third period, Semyon Der-Arguchintsev briefly tied the game up at three for the Petes. But Watson scored the game winner at 12:23 with assists to both McLeod brothers.

Michael then scored the insurance goal to put Mississauga up 5-3 unassisted at 13:42 of the third period.

In goal, Matthew Mancina made 27 saves on 30 shots faced while the Petes’ Dylan Wells made 27 saves on 32 shots.

Game two of this series takes place on April 22 as well. The game will be played at the Peterborough Memorial Centre.

In one final bit of news, the Devils signed a player today from the KHL’s Moscow Spartak to an entry level deal.

Defenseman Yaroslav Dyblenko signed a two year entry-level deal today as the announcement was made by Ray Shero. He had four goals and seven assists for 11 points to go with 51 penalty minutes in 51 games last season according to the Devils’ press release on the matter. Over his KHL career, he has 12 goals, 27 assists, 39 points and 150 penalty minutes all in 180 games.

He is a 23-year-old native of Surgut, Russia and shoots from the left side. He is 6-foot, 1-inch tall and 205 pounds. The press release mentions that he won a bronze medal at the 2013 World Junior Championship in Ufa, Russia; was a member of the Russian Selects team that played in (and won) the 2012 Subway Super Series tournament; was the KHL’s Rookie of the Month for October 2013; and was invited to Team Russia’s training camp for the 2016 World Championships.

That is quite a resume, hopefully he pans out as more and more NHL teams begin to look at the KHL as a feeder league to try to get prospects at a decent price.