Marlies carry 2-0 lead into Game 3 after overtime thriller in Chicago
Logan Shaw's 3:46 overtime winner put Toronto up 2-0, and the Marlies bring a franchise-record six straight road playoff wins home for Game 3.
Toronto came home one win from command of the Calder Cup Finals after surviving another Chicago surge and another late twist in Game 2. Logan Shaw’s loose-puck goal 3:46 into overtime sent the Marlies to a 5-4 win at Allstate Arena on Sunday and gave Toronto a 2-0 series lead heading into Game 3 tonight in Toronto at 7 ET.
The second game had the kind of swings that can break a series, but Toronto kept finding the answer. Shaw and Bo Groulx each scored twice, Vinni Lettieri and William Villeneuve each had three assists, and Artur Akhtyamov stopped 28 shots to keep the Marlies from losing control when the Wolves pushed back. Cayden Primeau made 27 saves for Chicago, which erased multiple deficits and got a third-period equalizer from Juuso Välimäki with 16.7 seconds left in regulation before Toronto finished the job in overtime.
That late tying goal carried historical weight. TheAHL.com noted that Välimäki’s strike was the latest game-tying goal in a Calder Cup Finals game since 2002, when Chicago’s Steve Maltais forced overtime against Bridgeport with 2.7 seconds remaining in Game 1. Toronto still outlasted the moment, and the sequence fit a postseason in which the Marlies have already won eight come-from-behind games.
The win also extended a run that has become one of Toronto’s most telling numbers of the playoffs. The Marlies have won six straight road games, a franchise playoff record, and they were already 8-3 away from home when they opened the Finals. That road toughness showed in Game 1 as well, when Vinni Lettieri scored the tiebreaking goal with 8:28 left in regulation in a 4-2 Toronto victory and finished with two goals and an assist.
However the Wolves frame the matchup on paper, the first two games have shown a Toronto group that has learned to live inside chaos and still finish it. That is what makes Game 3 so dangerous for Chicago and so promising for the Marlies: one more composed, ugly, pressure-filled night, and Toronto can take near-total control of a Finals that began as an improbable collision between the AHL’s 15th-place and 11th-place teams. The series is being carried on FloHockey 24/7, Sportsnet 360, NHL Network and SiriusXM NHL Network Radio.
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