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TOR 3 - PRO 4 (OT)

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Toronto: V. Lettieri (10) (B. Groulx, L. Shaw), M. Barbolini (5) (V. Lettieri), B. Groulx (20) (M. Barbolini, M. Rifai)
Goaltender: A. Akhtyamov (34/38) OT/L

Providence: F. Lysell (14) (J. Farinacci), G. Merkulov (14) (D. Locmelis, M. Poitras), M. Poitras (8) PP (P. Brown), J. Harris (1) (G. Merukulov, M. DiPietro)
Goaltender: M. DiPietro (32/35) W

ON THE SCORESHEET

• Vinni Lettieri put the Marlies on the board at 14:38 of the first period and later added the lone assist on Barbolini’s second period goal. He has points (2-1-3) in consecutive games. Lettieri has 33 points (10 goals, 23 assists) in 37 games this season
• Matthew Barbolini scored at 5:11 of the second period and later added the primary assist on Groulx’s third period goal. He has 15 points (5 goals, 10 assists) in 36 games this season.
• Bo Groulx scored at 16:12 of the third period and earlier recorded the primary assist on Lettieri’s first period goal. He has points (2-4-6) in three consecutive games. Groulx has 36 points (20 goals, 16 assists) in 41 games this season.
• Logan Shaw had the secondary assist on Lettieri’s first period goal. He has points (2-4-6) in his four consecutive games. Shaw has 32 points (14 goals, 18 assists) in 42 games this season.
• Marshall Rifai recorded the secondary assist on Groulx’s third period goal.
• Artur Akhtyamov stopped 34 of 38 shots he faced.

TEAM NOTES

• The Marlies were 2-for-3on the penalty kill and 0-for-3 on the power play. Toronto is 11-10-2-1 when not scoring on the power play and 9-11-3-2 when allowing a goal on the penalty kill.
• Providence outshot Toronto 38-35. Bo Groulx led the Marlies with five shots on net. Toronto is 11-9-2-1 when outshot by their opponent.
• The Marlies are 3-4-2-0 against Atlantic Division opponents and finish their regular season series 0-1-1-0against the Bruins.
• Toronto wraps up their annual Boat Show Road Trip with a record of 3-1-2-0 and will return to Coca-Cola Coliseum on January 31.

POSTGAME QUOTES

HEAD COACH JOHN GRUDEN

On today’s game:
We know how good of a team they are. It shows in the standings. When you see them live with the success they’ve had, they pretty much have no weaknesses. They dangerous up and down the lineup. Good defencemen who can skate and they have a great goaltender. I thought we managed the game other than the first five minutes. I thought we settled in and really had a lot of good moments. We lost a little bit of that momentum on the 5-on-3 (penalty kill) but for the most part, happy with the point. It would have been nice to get two but definitely a different contrast from protecting goal leads and now we had to come back so, definitely a positive for us.

TOR 4 - HFD 1

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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.

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.