With the quirky best-of-five quarterfinal arrangement in the AHL playoffs, holding serve at home puts the higher seed one win away from the Conference semi finals. Following a 4-3 win on Thursday, the Marlies look to put themselves in the driver seat this afternoon with a Game 2 win over Rochester at Ricoh Coliseum.
In keeping with the ten regular season meetings between the two sides, a one-goal margin decided Game 1. Like in seven of the those ten games, the Marlies came out on top. Jerry D’Amigo scored twice, Matt Frattin and Mike Zigomanis added to the total as the Marlies staved off an Amerks comeback from 3-1 down to win 4-3.
The Marlies outplayed, outchanced and outshot the Amerks for large spells, and the game plan will be to replicate that success without the slip ups and penalty trouble that allowed the Amerks back in it after the Marlies scored three unanswered to lead 3-1 in the third frame.
There’s an expected sell out, or close to, today, with Ricoh hopefully providing the seventh man for the Marlies. Myself and Anthony Petrielli will be in attendance. I’ll be interacting in the comments throughout and Anthony will have your game story later on.
