After beginning the Western swing of their eight game road trip with consecutive losses to the Abbotsford Heat, the Marlies struggled and trailed in Houston through two periods, but Toronto rallied with four unanswered goals in the third period to defeat the Aeros 6-4 at the Toyota Center Thursday night.
Toronto’s Carter Ashton opened the scoring less than three minutes into the first, but Houston's Justin Fontaine evened the score exactly 6 minutes later.
Former Leafs draft pick Chad Rau and new Marlie Keith Aucoin exchanged goals early in the middle frame, but Houston took the lead at 12:03 as Jason Zucker took advantage of a Toronto giveaway and picked the top corner over Marlies goaltender Ben Scrivens right shoulder. With just 21 seconds left in the period, the Aeros increased their lead as promising prospect Charlie Coyle scored his seventh season with a soft shot that dribbled between Scrivens’ pads.
The Marlies began their comeback midway through the third as Leo Komarov deflected a Paul Ranger point shot to beat Houston goaltender Matt Hackett narrowing the gap to a single goal. Just over four minutes later, Jake Gardiner scored his fourth of the season on the power play to tie the game, which was followed in quick succession by the game-winner as a nice three-way passing play between Will Acton and Nicolas Deschamp led to Ashton's second of the game and third this season.
Team captain Ryan Hamilton scored into an empty net to ice away the victory, which brought the Marlies back to .500(4-4-1) after nine games.
Scrivens, who had the AHL’s best goals-against average last season continued his early-season struggles, allowing four goals on 19 shots in the first two periods before his club rallied in the final period. Toronto coach Dallas Eakins indicated to the Toronto Sun's Lance Hornby that he is waiting for the goalie who led the Marlies to the Calder Cup Final to straighten things out.
“He’s officially in a fight for the net. We’re far enough into the season that everyone has their feet wet. We’re looking for wins now. We don’t want to fall too far out of this race. I know there are a lot of games left, I know it’s early, but I know if you fall in a very deep hole now, you’ll never recover.”
After a six-day layoff following their two games in B.C., tonight's game began a string of four games in six nights, with a stop in Cedar Park(near Austin), TX to face the Texas Stars tomorrow night, San Antonio on Saturday night and Oklahoma City next Tuesday, before returning to Ontario to finish the road trip in Hamilton against the Bulldogs.
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Johnny “China Wall” Bower, whose birthday was on Thursday teamed up with fellow Hall of Famer Terrance Gordon Sawchuk in 1967 to defeat Montréal in the Stanley Cup Final to give the veteran laden Toronto club their fourth championship in six seasons in 1967 and as most of us know, they have not appeared in the Final since.
It is fairly striking when you consider the goaltenders of hockey's recent dynasties and see that Montréal great Ken Dryden is 65, Philadelphia's Bernie Parent is 67, the Islanders Billy Smith is 61 and Edmonton's Grant Fuhr is 50, but that the last Maple Leafs goaltender to win a Stanley Cup just turned 88.
One wonders how old each of us will be when Toronto wins the Stanley Cup……
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