Coming off a road loss to the Rochester Americans, the Marlies came into today’s game against the league-leading Charlotte Checkers hungry for a win. The Marlies came out firing and set the tone early on with 17 shots and four goals in the opening frame.
Sam Gagner opened the scoring at 5:14 after jumping out on a breakaway and firing a shot over Alex Nedeljkovic’s glove. Carl Grundstrom and Frank Corrado assisted on Gagner’s eighth of the season. At 9:18, Steve Oleksy fired a one-timer from the top of the faceoff circle that beat Nedeljkovic to make it 2-0 for the Marlies. Jeremy Bracco and Dymtro Timashov assisted on Oleksy’s first of the season. The Marlies found success on their second power play opportunity of the game as Bracco found Chris Mueller on the doorstep who make no mistake tapping home his 15thof the season. That would be it for Nedeljkovic as goaltender Scott Darling entered the game in relief. Less than a minute later, the Checkers solved newly acquired goaltender, Michael Hutchinson as Saku Maenalanen scored a shorthanded goal to get the visitors on the board. The Marlies were quick to respond as Timashov set up Michael Carcone who beat a sprawled Darling to restore the Marlies three-goal lead. The Marlies outshot the Checkers 17-8 in the opening frame and held a 4-1 lead heading into the first intermission.
The second frame was quieter than the first with the only goal coming from Charlotte’s Greg McKegg at 12:38. Aleksi Saarela and Andrew Poturalski picked up the assists on McKegg’s fifth of the season as the Checkers cut the deficit to 4-2 heading into the final frame.
The Checkers caught up in the third period with two unanswered goals from Zach Nastasiuk and McKegg to send the game into overtime.
Marlies leading scorer, Chris Mueller provided the overtime heroics, netting his second of the night and 16thof the season to seal a 5-4 victory for the home team.