Marlies Fall In Overtime to Springfield

TOR 3 - SPR 4 (OT)

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Toronto: B. Valis (10) (C. Paré, B. Groulx), C. Paré (5) PP (B. Groulx, L. Shaw), B. Groulx (19) (M. Johnstone, M. Rifai)
Goaltender: A. Akhtyamov (35/39) OT/L

Springfield: M. Gaudet (3) (Z. Dean), C. Wagner (11) (M. Buchinger), M. Luff (13) (A. Kaskimaki, C. Rosen), T. Linstein (3) (A. Kaskimaki, M. Peca)
Goaltender: V. Zherenko (29/32) W

ON THE SCORESHEET

• Borya Valis opened the scoring at 5:26 of the first period. This was his fourth game recording the first goal, leading all Marlies. He has 16 points (10 goals, 6 assists) in 37 games this season.
• Cédric Paré scored on the power play at 15:28 of the first period and earlier recorded the primary assist on Valis’ first period goal. This was his first power play goal of the season. He has 12 points (5 goals, 7assists) in 32 games this season.
• Bo Groulx scored at 15:45 of the second period. He has now set a career-high in goals (19) recorded in a single season. Groulx earlier had the secondary assist on Valis’ first period goal and the primary assist on Paré’s first period power play goal. This was his eighth multi-point game of the season. He has 33 points (19 goals, 14 assists) in 39 games this season.
• Logan Shaw recorded the secondary assist on Paré’s first period power play goal. This was his 46^th power play assist as a Marlie, ranking him fourth all-time .He has 29 points (14 goals, 15 assists) in 40 games this season.
• Marc Johnstone had the primary assist on Groulx’s second period goal.
• Marshall Rifai registered the secondary assist on Groulx’s second period goal. This was his 200^th career AHL game.
• Artur Akhtyamov stopped 35 of 39 shots he faced. This was Akhtyamov’s first overtime loss of the season. He is 3-1 this season in overtime. Akhtyamov is 15-7-1 this season with a 2.90 goals against average and a 0.899 save percentage.

TEAM NOTES

• The Marlies were 3-for-4 on the penalty kill and 1-for-3 on the power play. Toronto is 10-4-1-1 when scoring on the power play and 9-11-2-2 when allowing a goal on the penalty kill.
• Toronto has recorded at least one power play goal in five consecutive games (42.1%, 8-for-19). Luke Haymes (1), Vinni Lettieri (2), Cédric Paré (1), Jacob Quillan (2) and Borya Valis (2) have scored power play goals over that span.
• Springfield outshot Toronto 39-32. Vinni Lettieri led the Marlies with five shots on net. Toronto is 11-9-1-1 when outshot by their opponent.
• The Marlies are 3-4-1-0 against Atlantic Division opponents and 0-0-1-0 against the Thunderbirds.

POSTGAME QUOTES

HEAD COACH JOHN GRUDEN

On when the game’s momentum shifted to Springfield:
When we started getting into some penalty trouble there at the end of the second, we lose a pretty good defenceman on the backend and then we took another offensive zone penalty early on in third that gave them some momentum and the final (penalty) when the puck went over the glass. They were better than us in the third period. They played desperate. We can’t shoot ourselves in the foot like that. We talk about it all the time. If we want to keep climbing and climb in the standings and play the way we want to play – we did a lot of good things – but if we really want to take that next step, those things have to be cleaned up.

BO GROULX (1 GOAL, 2 ASSISTS)

On the penalties:
We knew they have a good power play and they capitalized on some chances and made some really nice plays. We’ve talked about not taking a lot of penalties. That’s been kind of the story of our team in the first couple weeks of the season and we got better but today, we kind of shoot ourselves in the foot. I was part of it. I took a stupid one when I tried to strip the puck from the guy. We’ve just got to learn from that. We’ve got two more games (this weekend). We’ve got one point right now. We play Hartford tomorrow. It’s a big game so, we’ll be ready.