Toronto Defeats Hartford 4-1

TOR 4 - HFD 1

‍

Toronto:  V. Lettieri (9) (B. Groulx, L. Shaw), C. Paré (6) PP (L. Shaw, T. Boyd), M. Barbolini (4)(Unassisted), R. Tverberg (5) (C. Sharpe, M. Barbolini)
Goaltender: K. Appleby (37/38) W

Hartford: B. Brisson (11) (D. Roobroeck, T. Fix-Wolansky)
Goaltender: C. Tung (3/6) L, D. Garand (17/18)

ON THE SCORESHEET

• Vinni Lettieri opened the scoring at 3:10 of the first period. This was his 150^th career AHL goal. He has 31 points (9 goals, 22 assists) in 36 games this season.
• Cédric Paré scored the game-winning goal on the power play at 9:30 of the first period. He has power play goals (2) in consecutive games. He has 13 points (6 goals, 7 assists) in 33 games this season.
• Matthew Barbolini scored at 2:24 of the second period and later had the secondary assist on Tverberg’s goal. This was his first multi-point game of the season. He has 13 points (4 goals, 9 assists) in 35 games this season.
• Ryan Tverberg scored 2:43 of the second period. He has 11 points (5 goals, 6 assists) in 34 games this season.
• Bo Groulx recorded the primary assist on Lettieri’s first period goal. He has 34 points (19 goals, 15 assists)in 40 games this season.
• Logan Shaw had the secondary assist on Lettieri’s first period goal and the primary assist on Paré’s power play goal, both in the first period. Shaw’s first assist of the game was his 200^th career AHL assist. He has 31 points (14 goals, 17 assists) in 42 games this season. This is Shaw’s fifth consecutive season with 30-plus points.
• Travis Boyd registered the secondary assist on Paré’s first period power play. He has 28 points (10 goals, 18 assists) in 33 games this season.
• Chas Sharpe picked up the primary assist on Tverberg’s second period goal. He has eight points (2 goals, 6 assists) in 24 games this season with the Marlies.
• Ken Appleby stopped 37 of 38 shots he faced in his first win as a Marlie.

TEAM NOTES

• The Marlies were 3-for-3 on the penalty kill and 1-for-3 on the power play. Toronto is 11-4-1-1 when scoring on the power play and 13-4-0-0 when not allowing a goal on the penalty kill.
• Toronto has recorded at least one power play goal in six consecutive games (40.9%, 9-for-22). Luke Haymes (1), Vinni Lettieri (2), Cédric Paré (2), Jacob Quillan (2) and Borya Valis (2) have scored power play goals over that span.
• Hartford outshot Toronto38-24. Reese Johnson led the Marlies with four shots on net. Toronto is 13-9-1-1 when outshot by their opponent.
• The Marlies are 4-4-1-0 against Atlantic Division opponents and 1-0-0-0 against the Wolf Pack.

POSTGAME QUOTES

HEAD COACH JOHN GRUDEN

On tonight’s game:
We obviously liked the result and I liked the process as well. What I really liked and we addressed it and the players executed really well was our third period. I thought we managed it well, kept them to the outside, didn’t really give them any grade-As and I thought we did it by rolling over four lines. They executed it really well and that’s going to go a long ways for when we go into Providence tomorrow.

On Ken Appleby:
That’s a good word for it (calm). He looked poised. For being injured for awhile and this being basically his second game for us, I thought he looked really good. That was a performance that we needed and it definitely gave our group some confidence and he made some big saves when he needed to.

On Matthew Barbolini:
I really liked their line with Haymes and Ryan Tverberg. I thought their line brought us a lot of energy and they got speed. They have a lot of energy and they definitely set the tone in the second period. Good for Barbs to get rewarded (1 goal, 1 assist). I know he was snake bitten a couple of times on some open netters. For him to get rewarded with a couple of points will be big for his confidence.

KEN APPLEBY (37 SAVES)

On his performance:
I’ve got to credit the guys in the room, the coaching staff in the room, Hannu(Toivonen, goaltending coach) just making me feel welcome and making me feel like I’m allowed to come in here and play the game that I need to play. Luckily, they backed me up here tonight too. Lots of blocks. They made my job easy. It was a good team effort all around.

On the team’s performance:
This team has a lot of good players, a lot of skill … It’s a special group. We can do special things. Whoever’s in (net) whether it’s myself, Artie, Peks or Hildeby whoever it may be if we can just do our job and make the saves we need to make, a lot of the times this team is going to score goals that we need to score and come up with wins.