Marlies erupt on special teams, rout Rocket 6-2 to tie series
Toronto’s power play went from silent to savage, scoring four times with the man advantage and turning a 3-1 Game 1 loss into a 6-2 rout.
Toronto did not just answer Game 1. It corrected it, loudly. After getting beaten 3-1 at Place Bell on Wednesday, the Marlies ripped off six unanswered goals Friday night and flattened the Laval Rocket 6-2 to knot the North Division semifinal at one game apiece.
The story of the night was the special teams avalanche. Toronto, which had managed only three power-play goals in 29 chances across its previous nine games against Laval, scored four times with the man advantage and added a shorthanded empty-net goal. That was the margin between looking overmatched and looking in control, and it changed the mood of the series in one game.
Easton Cowan drove the response with a goal and two assists, continuing the kind of high-motor playoff push that has made him one of Toronto’s most interesting forwards. Logan Shaw, Cedric Paré and Vinni Lettieri each finished with a goal and an assist, giving the Marlies layers of offense the Rocket could not match once the game tilted. William Villeneuve was just as important from the back end, piling up three assists and helping Toronto’s puck movement turn into clean looks at the net.
The turning point came late in the second period. Luke Haymes broke a 2-2 tie with 1:51 left in the frame, and Toronto never gave the Rocket room to breathe after that. Once the Marlies got ahead, the power play kept carving through Laval’s structure, and Artur Akhtyamov had the breathing room he needed to settle in and finish with 29 saves in his first start of the series.
Laval still got goals from Laurent Dauphin and Joshua Roy, but it could not hold the middle stretch of the game or recover after Toronto started landing on the man advantage. That matters because this matchup was supposed to belong to the division champion Rocket, who finished eight points ahead of fourth-place Toronto in the regular season and came in rested after a first-round bye. The Marlies, meanwhile, survived Rochester in three games to get here and had already won five of the eight regular-season meetings with Laval, so this was never a true mismatch.
It looked like one after Game 1, when Dennis Hildeby took the loss for Toronto and Kaapo Kähkönen backstopped Laval’s 3-1 win. Game 2 flipped the script. With Matt Benning and Matthew Barbolini still out because of upper-body injuries and rookie Chas Sharpe in Benning’s spot, Toronto found its edge anyway. The series now moves to Toronto with the Marlies carrying the sharper special teams and the clearer momentum.
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