Toronto Maple Leafs

Marlies Puchless Offense Moves On To Round 2

The Toronto Marlies couldn’t buy a goal. They couldn’t steal one. They couldn’t make their own. Bates Battaglia basically had to find a cheap knock-off in Kensington and convince Toronto hockey fans that the Marlies are a class act worth watching. Robbie Earl didn’t play in this series due to a lower body injury. Jiri Tlusty was all but invisible aside from his late 3rd period hooking penalty in game 7, and seemed to check out following his game winner in the first game of the series. David Ling didn’t register a shot between games 2 and 6, and didn’t dress for games 4 and 5. The Marlies had NO offensive talent show up for this series.

They out-shot the Rampage 38-24 in game 6 and still managed to lose 3-0. Overall in the series they were outshot 232-217, and outscored 19-16, DESPITE winning the series 4 games to 3.

Now the Marlies move on to round 2 to face the Syracuse Crunch who disposed of the Manitoba Moose in 6 games. To be fair to Manitoba, 5 of those 6 games went into OT, and all 4 of Syracuse’s wins came by way of the extra frame. They are almost as offensively challenged as the Marlies, with only 14 goals in the entire series against Manitoba. They out shot the Moose 205-185 over a 6 game stretch.

Nobody on either franchise has more than 5 points offensively in the Calder Cup playoffs, so how did the goaltenders do? Crunch goaltender Karl Goehring had a 1.93 GAA, and a .929 SV%. Clemmensen finished up with a 2.65 GAA, and a .921 SV%.

Anyone else want to see how Justin Pogge does in a playoff atmosphere??? Maybe I’m alone on this one, but considering Pogge had a 3-0-1 record, with a .913 SV%, against Syracuse during the regular season, while Clemmensen was 1-1-2, with a .902 SV%, I’d like to think the kid will get an opportunity. Clemmensen actually started the last 3 games against Syracuse during the regular season, all of which ended up as Marlie losses, with 2 of those games going past regulation. The Marlies lost their last 4 games with Syracuse during the regular season after winning the first 4, ending the year up 4-1-3 against them. Four of the games went ended in OT or Shootout.

The Marlies had over 30 shots in every game against Syracuse this season, but only scored on 8.7% of their shots. 24 goals on 274 shots… not such a good clip.

Basically I expect a lot of these games to be relatively “ugly” hockey, with a large potential for OT. I also doubt the Marlies will start Pogge, but considering he’s only been a backup this far, and he started half the games in the regular season, including most of the Marlies wins against the Crunch… who knows what the gerbil on the wheel in Greg Gilbert’s brain is going to do? Let’s hope SOMEONE in the Leafs organization thinks Calder Cup experience might do the young net minder some good.