The Toronto Maple Leafs hierarchy is in Buffalo for this week’s NHL Scouting Combine, interviewing players for a draft in which they have seven draft choices, including the first overall pick. Their AHL affiliate, the Toronto Marlies, appeared to be in a prime position to make the Calder Cup Final for the first time since winning the title in 2018 after winning the first two games in Wilkes-Barre/Scranton.
In Game 3, the Penguins scored three times in the third period to win 5-3, and in Game 4, the Marlies took an early lead, allowed WBS to come back and take the lead with three second-period goals, tied the game late in the third, only to surrender the game-winner to the Penguins, Rutger McGroarty, with 2:59 left in a 4-3 loss.
Benoit-Olivier Groulx and Vinni Letteri scored on special teams in the opening frame, Groulx scoring short-handed and Letteri on the power-play, but that lead evaporated over the next 20 minutes, as Scooter Brickey, Chase Pietila, and Gabe Klassen put the Pens up 3-2. The Marlies tied the game with just under seven minutes left, as Luke Haymes scored on the man advantage, but Easton Cowan gave away the puck in his own zone to McGroarty, who slipped it between the pads of Marlies goalie Artur Akhtyamov.
“Our guys do a lot of good. We just have to eliminate the catastrophic,” Marlies head coach John Gruden said after the game. “If we do that, we’ll take this series back over and I think (the team) know that. I don’t have to sit there and tell them. It’s playoff hockey, and we have to understand turning the puck over isn’t going to work against a team that good.”
Cowan, who returned to the lineup after missing Games 2 and 3 with an upper-body injury, took ownership of the costly error after the loss.
“I got to be better; it starts with me. I cost my team the game. I’ve got to be better, and I will be on Friday.” Cowan said.
Game 5 is on Friday at Coca-Cola Coliseum, before the series shifts back to Pennsylvania for Game 6 and possibly Game 7.
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