Pezzetta lifts Marlies past Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, Toronto leads 2-0
Pezzetta struck late again, this time in overtime, and Toronto headed home up 2-0 after surviving another tight one in Wilkes-Barre.
Michael Pezzetta has turned the Eastern Conference Finals into his personal wire act. After winning Game 1 with 1:36 left in regulation, he did it again Friday night, scoring 14:53 into overtime to lift the Toronto Marlies past the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins, 2-1, and send the series north with Toronto holding a 2-0 stranglehold.
That is the whole series in one sentence: one bounce, one touch, and one team now staring at elimination pressure before the matchup even hits its home ice. Toronto’s overtime winner at Mohegan Arena at Casey Plaza in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, came when Pezzetta ripped a high wrister from the left point that glanced off Penguins goaltender Sergei Murashov’s blocker and slipped behind him for the series-swinging goal. The Marlies had already taken the opener, 4-2, on Wednesday night, and Pezzetta was the finisher there too, burying the go-ahead goal with 1:36 left in regulation.
The 2-0 lead matters because it has turned what was already a hard-earned conference final into a climb that looks brutal for Wilkes-Barre/Scranton. The Penguins reached this round for the first time since 2014, while Toronto made the final four for the first time since 2019, but the Marlies have been the ones dictating the terms with late-game poise. That has been the pattern throughout their run, from Easton Cowan’s goal with 11.3 seconds left in Game 5 against the Cleveland Monsters to survive the division finals, to Pezzetta’s pair of dagger finishes in the first two games of this round.
Now Toronto gets the series shift it wanted. Game 3 is set for Monday, June 1, 2026, at 7 p.m. ET in Toronto, with Games 4 and 5, if needed, also moving to Ontario. The Marlies have been here before, but not often enough to treat this lightly. This is their seventh trip to the AHL’s final four, and the difference this time is that they did not wait for a cushion to grow comfortable. They built the cushion themselves, one late goal at a time, and now the Penguins have to answer before the series gets away from them for good.
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