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The Toronto Marlies have enjoyed a great deal of success and little adversity in the Calder Cup Playoffs. After losing two straight on the road to the Utica Comets, the Marlies had a run of 10 straight playoff wins, including four game sweeps of the Syracuse Crunch and Lehigh Valley Phantoms, but after a third period comeback to win Game 1, Toronto saw their winning streak end with a 2-1 loss to the Texas Stars in Game 2 of the Calder Cup Final on Sunday.
“These are the way that playoffs are supposed to be. They’re not supposed to be the way they have gone for us here of late.… Marlies head coach Sheldon Keefe said after the club’s first loss since April 29. “You have to be able to deal with these types of things and frankly it’s expected.…
Ben Smith scored the only goal for the Marlies in the first period that they dominated with 13 shots on goal, but the club had a difficult time breaking through the tough Texas defense after that, registering just nine shots on Stars goalie Mike McKenna in the remaining 40 minutes of regulation.
🚨GOAL!🚨Ben smith defelects a Travis Dermott shot in to the net and Marlies have a 1-0 lead after 20! 🔥 #MarliesLive pic.twitter.com/Wj0CdR8Qjw
— David Nestico (@davidnestico200) June 3, 2018
Texas failed to take advantage of three power plays (including 1:40 with a two man advantage) in the second period, but cashed in on their fourth opportunity early in the third with Marlies defenseman Vincent Loverde called for holding the stick.
Defenseman Gavin Bayreuther’s blast through a screen beat Sparks to give Texas the lead and their team defense took over for the remainder of regulation, limiting Toronto to only four shots.
The Marlies were unable to build speed through the neutral zone and carry the puck over the blueline late in regulation (thanks in part to degrading ice conditions) to generate scoring chances to tie the game. They struggled to even get possession of the puck and dump the puck into the Texas zone to be able to pull Sparks for an extra attacker.
A growing concern for Toronto has to the be the play of the top line of Carl Grundstrom, Miro Aaltonen and Andreas Johnsson. For the second game in a row, the trio was held off the score sheet and limited to only three shots on goal after scoring a collective 35 points in 13 playoff games.
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Following a travel day, the series will resume with three straight games at the H-E-B Center in Cedar Park, TX (a suburb of Austin) on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, where the temperatures have been over 100 degrees Fahrenheit in recent days.
“Now we get a chance to respond,… Keefe said, “We are going to go out on the road, we haven’t been there, but we expect it will be a difficult place to play. It’s going to be loud, they play tough at home just like we do. It’s going to be a challenging task of course, but one I think we will be real excited for.…
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