WILKES-BARRE TWP. \u2014 Despite a valiant effort, the season is over for the Wilkes-Barre\/Scranton Penguins.<\/p>\n
Alex Nylander scored at 13:44 of sudden-death overtime to give the Toronto Marlies a 2-1 win over the Penguins in Game 6 of the AHL Calder Cup Eastern Conference Final on Sunday night at Mohegan Arena at Casey Plaza before a raucous crowd of 6,006.<\/p>\n
Easton Cowan also scored and goalie Artur Akhtyamov made 39 saves \u2014 including the last 37 shots he faced \u2014 to help enable the Marlies to take the hard-fought best-of-7 series, 4-2, and advance to the Calder Cup Final for the third time in franchise history. There, the Marlies will face the winner of the Western Conference Final between the Colorado Eagles and Chicago Wolves. That series is headed to a Game 7 on Monday night after Chicago rallied to win Game 6 in Colorado on Sunday night, 3-2.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt hasn\u2019t been easy, but it\u2019s not supposed to be easy at this time of the year,\u201d Toronto coach John Gruden said. \u201cWe have a really good mix of great older guys that have been around, have great leadership qualities who led and a bunch of younger legs that followed. No one was expected to put on a show, they just played as a team.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve got to give credit, that\u2019s a real talented team we just beat. They\u2019re fast, they\u2019re quick, their transition game is second to none. I\u2019m just proud of our players for sticking with it and getting the job done.\u201d<\/p>\n
Aidan McDonough scored for the Penguins and goalie Sergei Murashov stopped 37 of 39 shots.<\/p>\n
Still, it wasn\u2019t enough.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just feel bad for the guys. They worked so hard,\u201d Penguins coach Kirk MacDonald said. \u201cIt was a great hockey game tonight. We battled so hard. I\u2019m really proud of the group. Obviously we had championship aspirations.\u201d<\/p>\n
Added Murashov: \u201cNo regrets. That\u2019s the main thing. We gave everything we could.\u201d<\/p>\n
The game-winning goal came off a faceoff in the Penguins zone. Cedric Pare won the draw and Borya Valis picked up the puck along the left-wing boards. He passed it to Nylander and the former Penguin skated between the circles and snapped a shot past Murashov, setting off a celebration for the Marlies.<\/p>\n
MacDonald felt the difference in the series was three plays. Toronto scored the go-ahead goal in Game 1 with 1:36 remaining and took Games 2 and 6 in overtime \u2014 all at Mohegan Arena. The Marlies have not lost on the Penguins\u2019 home ice since Jan. 22, 2022. Ironically, in that game, Nylander had the tying goal late and the game-winner in OT for the Penguins.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese were all one-goal games. Every game was down to the wire,\u201d MacDonald said. \u201cThey made three more plays than us when you really get down to it. It was great hockey. The puck just didn\u2019t fall for us. But it wasn\u2019t from lack of effort.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ahktyamov also was a difference. He made 190 saves on 203 shots in the series, including 71 of 73 in the final two games.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was really good. You\u2019ve got to tip your hat,\u201d McDonough said. \u201cHe was super aggressive and I think if I could have a do-over on a couple of the chances I had, maybe you could fake him, bait him, try to get around him a little bit and look to the weak side. We did a good job of getting to him, getting to the back door, getting guys in front. Unfortunately, it didn\u2019t bounce our way.\u201d<\/p>\n
A post-whistle skirmish in front of the Penguins net resulted in a roughing minor against Toronto\u2019s Marc Johnstone at 6:20 of the first period. It took the Penguins just six seconds to score on the ensuing power play and grab a 1-0 lead.<\/p>\n
Gabe Klassen won the faceoff in the Toronto zone back to Harrison Brunicke. Brunicke passed to Avery Hayes, who sent a cross-ice pass from the right-wing boards to McDonough alone at the left faceoff circle. McDonough wristed a shot past Akhtyamov for his fourth goal of the playoffs.<\/p>\n
\u201cHayesie made a great play under a stick through a seam to me,\u201d McDonough said. \u201cI just tried to catch-and-shoot, get it off as quick as possible.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnfortunately we couldn\u2019t get it done later with the power plays. We had looks, but it stinks.\u201d<\/p>\n
Toronto carried the better of the play in the first half of the second period, taking nine of the first 11 shots. The Marlies tied the game at 9:11. Luke Haynes fed the puck to Ryan Tverberg down low at the goal line. Tverberg\u2019s shot was stopped by Murashov, but Cowan was there to knock home the rebound for his seventh goal of the playoffs.<\/p>\n
In the third period, both goalies stopped every shot to send the game to overtime. Murashov made 10 saves, while Akhtyamov had 16, including several off scrambles in front of his crease.<\/p>\n
They continued to match saves in overtime, including one wild sequence that saw Akhtyamov make three quick saves on Ville Koivunen, Rutger McGroarty and Koivunen again. Toronto then went 2-on-1 in the other direction with Murashov denying Trevberg to keep it tied.<\/p>\n
\u201cAny team that wins this time of year, you need goaltending,\u201d MacDonald said. \u201cSergei was outstanding tonight, too. He made some huge saves for us, especially that one in overtime after I thought we scored. That 2-on-1. A huge save that keeps us alive, but then kind of seeing-eye shot for the winner.\u201d<\/p>\n
Five minutes later, though, Nylander ended it.<\/p>\n
During the postgame handshake line, Akhtyamov and Murashov shared a hug and an extended conversation.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe got to know each other at the All-Star Game. He\u2019s a great guy,\u201d Murashov said. \u201cGive credit to his game and how he played and his efforts. I said good luck for the rest of the final series and he said it was great playing (against) each other. We respect each other. What happens on the ice is left on the ice.\u201d<\/p>\n
Looking back, McDonough doesn\u2019t think the Penguins could have done anything more.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe only scored one goal tonight, one in the game before. Obviously the team that scores more is going to win,\u201d McDonough said. \u201cWe could have buried our chances, but that\u2019s just hockey sometimes. We had plenty of looks throughout the whole series. Carried a lot of the play. I think we left it all out there. We emptied the tank pretty good.\u201d<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, the Penguins\u2019 season hit \u2018E\u2019.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WILKES-BARRE TWP. \u2014 Despite a valiant effort, the season is over for the Wilkes-Barre\/Scranton Penguins. Alex Nylander scored…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":78893,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[19017,49,48],"class_list":["post-78892","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-toronto","tag-penguins","tag-sports","tag-toronto"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78892","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78892"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78892\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/78893"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78892"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78892"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78892"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}