TORONTO — The Toronto Marlies dropped the first game of their Calder Cup Playoffs series against the Albany Devils 2-1 Wednesday night, but it wasn’t for a lack of opportunities.
Despite missing a number of key players to begin Round 2, including star centre William Nylander, winger Nikita Soshnikov and captain Andrew Campbell, the Marlies pushed the pace from the opening faceoff but couldn’t break through against one of the AHL’s stingiest teams.
“They make it hard on you, but that said I thought we had more than enough opportunities to score more than one goal but we failed to capitalize,” said head coach Sheldon Keefe.
Missing a pair of game-breakers like Nylander and Soshnikov didn’t help in a one-goal game, but the Marlies, who outshot Albany 33-29, weren’t using it as an excuse either.
“You always miss a guy like [Nylander] in the lineup, but it’s the kind of thing where the next guy has to step up,” said forward Ben Smith. “We’ve got 25 great hockey players in there.”
The two who had the most success against Albany on Wednesday were also two of the most skilled: wingers Kasperi Kapanen and Brendan Leipsic.
Leipsic was one of the few players able to find his way inside Albany’s defenders and looked dangerous every time the puck was on his stick. Kapanen used his speed to create a few quality scoring chances, the most impressive of which came after he hustled back to break up an odd-man rush and turned back up the ice for a chance against on a two-on-one.
The Marlies are going to need more of the same from their skill players as the series progresses.
“We’ve had a lot of success all year scoring, we’re not going to panic or dwell on this too much,” said Leipsic. “We knew we had our chances … You get a power-play goal here or there, a bounce, and it’s a different game.”
Things might have unfolded differently if the Marlies were able to capitalize on their early momentum, including a glorious chance for Stuart Percy in the slot, but a few bad mistakes quickly turned things in the Devils’ favour.
Albany opened the scoring with Rich Clune in the box for interference, and after Colin Smith tied it up just over a minute later, a bad giveaway by Josh Leivo at the opposing blue-line led to another Devils goal — one goaltender Garret Sparks would like to have back.
The Marlies had a few more opportunities later in the period. Mark Arcobello couldn’t put home a rebound in the slot, while Rinat Valiev just missed the far side after snaking his way through the Devils’ defence.
Albany clamped down after that as they slowed up the Marlies through the neutral zone and forced them into playing their grind-it-out style of game. The power play also struggled to generate much offence, going 0-for-3 on the night.
Getting Nylander and Soshnikov back will help — their status for Game 2 is uncertain — but with a team as deep as theirs, there is no shortage of players capable of pitching in on offence. Now it’s just about execution.
“We saw what we can do and what we’re capable of and what we can make them do,” said Keefe. “We’ve just got to stick with it.”
