Toronto Marlies Weekend Preview: November 19-20

Nov 19, 2016

The Toronto Marlies are certainly glad to be back in familiar surroundings after a road-trip of highs and lows.

Toronto is riding a five-game win streak at Ricoh Coliseum, with victories against Utica (2), Manitoba (2), and an overtime success over the Providence Bruins. It’ll be the St. John’s IceCaps looking to wreck the Marlies perfect home road during a pair of games this weekend.

The two teams have already met twice in Newfoundland this season, splitting the spoils in a two-game series.

The IceCaps are two-thirds of the way through a six-game road trip and played in Rochester Friday night. They enter Saturday’s contest winners of two straight, including a shootout success most recently against the Amerks — this despite losing a host of offensive talent in Chris Terry, Charles Hudon and Sven Andrighetto, all call-ups to Montreal.

St. John’s early success has come thanks to an offense that has scored 56 times in sixteen games and a young Charles Lindgren holding the fort in net. The rookie goaltender has won eight of his ten starts, is yet to allow more than three goals in a single game, and owns a 0.933 save percentage.

With Lindgren having played in Rochester Friday night, it’s likely that Yann Danis will take Saturday night’s start in Toronto. The veteran goaltender has not excelled thus far in his 13th year as a professional with no wins in three starts and an ugly looking .865 SV%. Danis allowed four goals against Albany in his last outing on November 12.

Having lost three of their top five points producers, other players have filled the void for St. John’s offensively. Stefan Matteau has scored five times in his last seven outings, Nikita Scherbak has four points in three games, and defenseman Mark Barberio has seven in his last six, including a pair of goals.

One area where the IceCaps have excelled in on the road is special teams. Their powerplay is registering at 28.9% on their travels while their road penalty kill sits at 88.9%. To put those statistics in context, they are good for second and third in the league respectively.

Toronto’s powerplay through five games on home ice is currently producing at 33.3% and special teams will no doubt be a key feature between two teams who have had trouble staying out of the box this season.

The Toronto Marlies head into this weekend on the back of a week of practise and some rest after a stretch on the road.

“We are rested and for the most part healthy,” said Sheldon Keefe at yesterday’s practise.

This likely means no return for the injured Travis Dermott, who has yet to see action this month. Otherwise, there are some selection headaches for Keefe with the likes of Trevor Moore, Rich Clune, Dmytro Timashov and Marc-Andre Cliché all knocking on his door for more playing time, while Colin Greening and Brooks Laich have not consistently been performing at the level expected of two veterans.

Josh Leivo will play the last game of his conditioning loan on Saturday and it’ll be interesting to see who takes his place on the line with Frederik Gauthier and Kasperi Kapanen.

Antoine Bibeau has been in excellent form, even though he was shelled during the most recent outing in Lehigh. It’s inconceivable that he won’t be given the Saturday start, but the attention shifts to who is handed the net on Sunday afternoon, with Garret Sparks seemingly not in the coaching staff’s favour of late.

The key to this pair of games for Toronto is hitting the ground running after an extended break from game action. The IceCaps are certainly in full game mode but have endured a heavy schedule with plenty of travelling this week. If Toronto is able to get down to business early, St. John’s may well find themselves running on empty before the weekend is over.