Penguins extend road streak, cut Marlies’ East Final lead to 2-1
Toronto’s first loss flipped the East Final’s mood, and Game 4 could decide whether Wilkes-Barre/Scranton turns a 2-1 deficit into real control.
Toronto’s first loss of the postseason changed everything. The Marlies still led the Eastern Conference Finals 2-1, but Wilkes-Barre/Scranton’s 5-3 win in Game 3 on Monday did more than trim the gap. It broke Toronto’s perfect playoff script, snapped a streak of games in which the Marlies had never lost after scoring first, and sent the series back to Coca-Cola Coliseum with the Penguins suddenly believing they had seized the pressure point.
Game 3 turned on Ville Koivunen’s tie-breaking goal with 12:12 left, the kind of late strike that can reframe a series in one shift. Sergei Murashov backed it up with 36 saves, looking every bit like a playoff workhorse as Wilkes-Barre/Scranton evened its own emotional ledger after dropping Games 1 and 2. Aidan McDonough, Bill Zonnon and Atley Calvert combined for seven points, giving the Penguins enough depth behind Koivunen to survive Toronto’s push and keep alive an unusual trend: the visitor has now won 10 straight games in this matchup, a run that dates back to the 2022-23 season.
For Toronto, the loss stung because of how much of the series had already tilted its way. The Marlies opened with a 4-2 win on Michael Pezzetta’s late goal in Game 1, then survived a strange 2-1 overtime game in Game 2 on Pezzetta’s winner at 14:53 of the extra period. Game 3 was different. Luke Haymes scored and added an assist, Vinni Lettieri and Marc Johnstone also scored, and Landon Sim picked up his first postseason point, but it was not enough to protect a lead. Toronto also went just 2-for-7 on the power play through the series, and its 39 shots in Games 2 and 3 were well above the 23.6 shots per game it averaged through its first 14 playoff contests.
That is why Game 4 carried so much leverage. Toronto had reached the AHL’s final four for the seventh time and the first time since 2019, while Wilkes-Barre/Scranton was back in the conference finals for the first time since 2014. The Penguins had already rolled through Springfield in five games, capping that run with an 8-1 clincher in Game 5, and Owen Pickering’s return to the lineup in Game 3 gave them another layer of stability. Toronto remained shorthanded and uncertain, with Easton Cowan out for a second straight game, but William Villeneuve’s record for assists by a defenseman in one postseason and Logan Shaw’s reflection on the deepest playoff run of his 13-year career underscored how much is at stake.
The Marlies still held the series lead, but after Game 3 the balance felt different. One more response in Toronto could put Wilkes-Barre/Scranton on the brink of forcing this East Final into a full-blown battle of nerves.
This article was produced by Prism’s automated news system from verified source data, official records, and press releases, then run through automated quality and moderation checks before publishing. The system is built and supervised by the people who set the standards it runs under. Read our full AI policy.
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