The Toronto Marlies fell to the Belleville Senators 3-2 in overtime on Saturday afternoon at Coca-Cola Coliseum. Toronto is now fourth in the North Division with a 13-10-4-1 record.
The Marlies opened the scoring with a goal from Joseph Blandisi four minutes into the first period. Zach Solow added a second goal eight minutes later, giving Toronto a 2-0 lead through 20 minutes of play.
Roby Jarventie scored Belleville’s first goal of the game1:29 into the third period, cutting the Marlies lead to one. Egor Sokolov tied the game for the Senators just under 11 minutes later. Neither team was able to break the tie in regulation, forcing the game into overtime.
Cole Reinhart scored the game winner for the Senators 4:20 into the extra frame.
After the game, captain Logan Shaw detailed what went wrong for the Marlies in the third period.
“Couple breakdowns. We’ve just gotten away from our game a little bit,” Shaw said. “The first periods I thought we played well, we managed the puck, which I think is kind of the biggest thing that happened in the third – we weren’t getting it behind their goal line. And it cost us. We’ve gotta try to work ourselves out of this.”
Head Coach John Gruden echoed his captain’s assessment when asked about his message to the team afterBelleville’s first goal.
“Well, we just gotta remind them what works,” Gruden said. “We were simple. We were putting it deep. Then we played on our heels. You can’t win games that way. We have to still make sure that we’re doing the things that got us that lead. We didn’t do it. We just didn’t get it done.”
The Marlies will be back in action Wednesday against the Cleveland Monsters at Coca-Cola Coliseum. Puck drop is at 4:00pm on the Toronto Maple Leafs app or on AHLTV.