Patrick Williams, TheAHL.com Features Writer
Who had the Toronto Marlies reaching the Calder Cup Finals?
They did, for one.
Everyone else? Well, this was a group that lost six of eight games down the stretch. That kind of late-season slide will bring outside skepticism. But they pulled themselves together in the final days of the regular season. After a 6-3 loss at Utica on April 10, they went to Syracuse two days later, got themselves a 4-1 victory, and tuned up for the Calder Cup Playoffs with back-to-back wins against the Laval Rocket to close out the regular season.
Then came the Calder Cup Playoffs, and along the way these Marlies have left some major destruction in their wake. Down went the Rochester Americans, though that best-of-three series came down to a deciding Game 3. It started rather shakily, though. They did not settle on a goaltender initially. Head coach John Gruden went with Artur Akhtyamov for the Marlies’ first two playoff games against the Amerks before turning to Dennis Hildeby to get them through that Game 3. Laval, the North Division regular-season champion, followed, and Hildeby stayed in net for Game 1. But then it was back to Akhtyamov. The Marlies dispatched Laval as well in another match-up that went the distance, and Akhtyamov goes into the Calder Cup Finals with an 11-6 record, 2.12 goals-against average, and .927 save percentage.
Pitted against the Cleveland Monsters in the North Division Finals, the Marlies trailed by a goal late in the third period of the deciding Game 5 at Cleveland. They came alive, though. Captain Logan Shaw, a Marlies fixture, rallied them on a tying goal with 4:30 to go in regulation. At 2-2 and facing the possibility of overtime, rookie forward Easton Cowan jabbed a loose puck into the Cleveland net with 11.3 seconds to go.
Three rounds down, and the Marlies were off to face the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins. They kept going. Consecutive game-winners from Michael Pezzetta allowed the Marlies to grab the first two games of the series on the road. The pushback came, though, and the Penguins took two of three games at Coca-Cola Coliseum.
But going back to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton with a 3-2 series lead last Sunday night, the Marlies made sure to put a stop to any further Penguins pushback. Alex Nylander, a former Penguin, got loose and ended any thoughts of a Game 7 for Wilkes-Barre/Scranton fans 13:44 into overtime for a 2-1 win, the series, and a trip to the Calder Cup Finals.
The Marlies in the Finals for the third time, the first since their championship season in 2017-18. Game 1 against the Chicago Wolves is tonight at Allstate Arena.
Cowan, a 2023 first-round pick who had a 29-point with the parent Toronto Maple Leafs, has gotten hot with three goals in his past four games. Ben Danford, who was still in the Ontario Hockey League when this playoff run began, has come in to provide reliable work on the blue line. He’s another Leafs first-rounder. Luke Haymes has helped up front as have Jacob Quillan and pesky newcomer Landon Sim. And as is tradition in Toronto, there is a strong veteran base. Matt Benning, Dakota Mermis and Marshall Rifai bring know-how for the defense corps. Up front, Vinni Lettieri is a proven producer who holds a piece of the Calder Cup Playoff scoring lead with 17 points (eight goals, nine assists) in 18 games, joined by the likes of Bo Groulx, Cédric Paré and Ryan Tverberg.
The emotional swings that come with pursuing the Calder Cup are many. One of those letdowns came in Game 4 against the Penguins when a Cowan turnover set up the visitors’ late game-winning goal. Cowan vowed afterward that he would be better, and he went out and scored in both Game 5 and Game 6.
The Marlies have already won four rounds, played 19 playoff games – more than a quarter of a full regular season’s worth – and have been through an untold number of bruises, injuries and rapid changes in fortune. But while teams that outperformed them in the regular season are finished until this fall, the Marlies are still going.
There is still more road to cover, too.
“What a group we’ve got,” Cowan said this week at practice. “But we’re not finished. We’ve got a job to do.”
On the American Hockey League beat for two decades, TheAHL.com features writer Patrick Williams also currently covers the league for NHL.com and FloSports and is a regular contributor on SiriusXM NHL Network Radio. He was the recipient of the AHL’s James H. Ellery Memorial Award for his outstanding coverage of the league in 2016.