Marlies stun Penguins in overtime, take 2-0 series lead
A bizarre overtime review flipped Game 2, and Michael Pezzetta’s second straight winner pushed Toronto ahead 2-0 while Wilkes-Barre/Scranton faced a near-impossible climb.
A strange overtime review left Wilkes-Barre/Scranton stunned Friday night, as Michael Pezzetta’s goal at 14:53 of sudden death stood after an initial no-goal signal and gave the Toronto Marlies a 2-1 win at Mohegan Arena at Casey Plaza. The call turned a tight Eastern Conference Finals game into a 2-0 series lead for Toronto, with Game 3 set for Monday in Toronto.
The decisive sequence began with Pezzetta sending a shot from the blue line that was tipped into the air, drifted toward the net and changed direction again before the puck crossed the line. The on-ice call initially went the Penguins’ way, but a long review reversed it and confirmed the goal, ending one of the most chaotic finishes of the AHL playoffs. Pezzetta, who scored the go-ahead goal in Game 1 with 1:36 left in regulation, finished the first two games of the series with both winning goals.
Toronto had built the night’s first edge late in the opening period when Alex Nylander, the former Penguin, finished a power-play setup to put the Marlies in front. Wilkes-Barre/Scranton answered in the third period when Tanner Howe banged home a rebound around the eight-minute mark, a goal that reflected the Penguins’ best route through Toronto’s structure: win the dirty areas, survive the layers, and create a second chance.
Sergei Murashov kept Wilkes-Barre/Scranton in it with 37 saves, while Artur Akhtyamov stopped 33 for Toronto. The Penguins spent long stretches chasing the game and came close to forcing a split before the final bounce and the review erased that chance. It left the building with the sense that one decision had changed the entire night, and maybe the series’ margin for error as well.
Now the Penguins head to Toronto needing a response that only a handful of AHL teams have ever managed. The league noted that only eight teams in history have come back after losing the first two games of a best-of-seven series on home ice, and two of those comeback clubs were Wilkes-Barre/Scranton teams, in 2006 against Bridgeport and in 2011 against Norfolk. That history offers hope, but the pressure is now unmistakable: Toronto has won both games, John Gruden’s club had been 5-0 in Wilkes-Barre during his three seasons behind the Marlies bench, and the Penguins must find a way to make the series breathe again in Game 3.
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