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Steelheads Complete Sweep with 7-0 Win

The Mississauga Steelheads took home the Bobby Orr Trophy and will play for the OHL championship as they completed a four game sweep of the Peterborough Petes with a 7-0 win at the Hershey Centre tonight.

Owen Tippett scored from Trent Fox and Devils prospect Nathan Bastian at 8:29 of the first period and that was all they needed.

Ryan McLeod scored at 11:54 of the first with assists to his brother, Devils prospect Michael McLeod and Stefan LeBlanc. From there, the Steelheads got goals from Vili Saarijarvi (2:05 of the second), Jacob Moverare (9:20 of the second), Trent Fox (16:58 of the second), Michael McLeod (33 seconds into the third period) and Brendan Harrogate (17:18 of the third).

Matthew Mancina made 24 saves in getting the shutout, while Dylan Wells made 24 saves on 31 shots for Peterborough. Mancina was named the game’s first star. Saarijarvi was the second star and Fox was the third star.

Michael McLeod’s stat line saw him with the goal and assist for two points, a plus-3 rating and one shot on goal. He won nine of twelve faceoffs taken. Bastian had the assist for one point, was also a plus-3, had three shots on goal and won six of thirteen faceoffs taken.

With this win, the Steelheads claimed the Bobby Orr Trophy as winners of the OHL’s Eastern Conference and will face the winners of the Owen Sound Attack and the Erie Otters, who are battling for the Wayne Gretzky Trophy in the Eastern Conference, the OHL Finals and the chance to go play for the Memorial Cup. Owen Sound currently has a 2-1 series lead with game four being played tonight.

Congratulations to the Mississauga Steelheads and Michael McLeod and Nathan Bastian on making it this far and good luck in the next round.

Meanwhile, in the AHL tonight, the Albany Devils and the Toronto Marlies got together in game three at the Ricoh Coliseum in Toronto. That game took an overtime to finish, but the Marlies won 3-2, going up two games to one in their best-of-five first round series.

Brendan Leipsic scored first for Toronto at 3:49 of the first period, with assists to Kasperi Kapanen and Travis Dermott. That put the Marlies up 1-0 in the first before John Quenneville tied things up with assists to Karl Stollery and Ben Sexton. That goal came on the power play, set up when Kapanen went off for tripping at 9:49. The goal came at the 10:16 mark of the first. Albany went 1-for-4 on the power play while Toronto was 0-for-2.

Toronto retook the lead at the 17:59 mark of the second period when Leipsic scored his second of the game from Kapanen and Frederik Gauthier.

That lead only lasted about 23 seconds. At the 18:22 mark, Carter Camper tied it up for the A-Devils (assists to Steve Santini and Blake Pietila). And that was the scoring in regulation.

The game winner came at the 45 second mark of the first OT when Colin Greening scored for the Marlies from Justin Holl to win the game and give Toronto the 2-1 series lead.

In goal, Mackenzie Blackwood made 22 saves on 25 Toronto shots in the 60:45 of game time. Opposing him, Kasimir Kaskisuo made 27 saves on 29 Albany shots.

Greening was named the game’s first star with the overtime game winning goal. Leipsic was named the second star with his two regulation goals and Kapanen was the third star with two assists.

Game four takes place in Toronto on Friday. The Marlies have a chance to wrap things up then.

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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.