This week, the Toronto Marlies (the Toronto Maple Leafs‘ American Hockey League affiliate) won both ends of a home-and-home series with the Belleville Senators to finish the 2024 part of their 2024-25 schedule with a record of 17-5-2. Their .722 winning percentage is the best in the AHL.
Here’s a review of their games this past week, outlining who played well for the team.
Toronto Marlies 3, Belleville Senators 0
The Marlies moved into the Scotiabank Arena for their Boxing Day Matinee and played to double the number of fans at the Coca-Cola Coliseum. The 13,408 who attended the game were sent home happy as the Marlies and Dennis Hildeby shut out Belleville 3-0.
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It might not have been the most exciting game. The referees called anything that looked remotely like a foul, resulting in little flow. Altogether, 19 infractions were called. The Marlies put on a penalty-killing clinic, as the Senators failed to score on eight chances with the extra skater, including five straight, starting with 23 seconds left in the first period and continuing to the 13:15 mark of the second.
The Marlies scored evenly between the three periods, scoring once each. Alex Steeves opened the scoring at 7:46 of the first on a Marlies power play, sending home a wrist shot from the faceoff dot to the left of Senators’ goalie Mads Sogaard that beat Sogaard over his glove hand.
Jacob Quillan dug the puck out from the feet of Zack MacEwen after MacEwen blocked a point shot from Matt Benning and fired it past Sogaard before Sogaard had time to react. That goal put the Marlies up 2-0 at 9:56 of the second period.
After Belleville pulled Sogaard in favour of an extra skater late in the third period, three Toronto players had the puck on their sticks in the Senators’ zone but failed to put it into the empty net. Belleville carried the puck up the ice, only to have Fraser Minten intercept a pass in the Marlies’ zone and find the twine from his side of the Toronto blue line to close the scoring.
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Hildeby stopped all 31 shots to record his first shutout of the season.
Toronto Marlies 4, Belleville Senators 3
This game and the Boxing Day game did not seem to be played under the same rules. This game had just five penalties, and each infraction was blatant. Anything that may have been deemed questionable was let go. As a result, this game had a lot more flow and was a lot more exciting.
Kyle Clifford opened the scoring for the Marlies at 9:13 of the first period when he picked Matthew Highmore’s pocket directly in front of the Belleville net. Highmore didn’t seem to know that Clifford was behind him as he looked up the ice, trying to figure out what to do with the puck. Clifford lifted his stick from behind, grabbed the puck, turned, and fired it past a shocked Senators’ goalie Malcolm Subban.
Three minutes later, Hayden Hodgson deflected a point shot by defenseman Djibril Toure over Hildeby’s shoulder into the net to tie the game at 1-1. The Marlies dominated the first period but ended with the score knotted at one.
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William Villeneuve put the Marlies up 2-1 on the power play 5:11 into the second. He fired a seeing-eye wrist shot from the point that went through five bodies in front of the Belleville goal and past Subban. Subban did not see the puck until it was in the net.
The Senators struck twice in 21 seconds midway through the second period to take a 3-2 lead. The first was a one-timer by Garrett Pilon that Hildeby was a bit late getting across his crease to cover. The second was off of a nice individual effort by MacEwen as he entered the Toronto zone with speed, knocked the puck up in the air to get it past Topi Niemela, then gloved it down to his stick and fired it past Hildeby. Cade Webber came across on the play and may have gotten his stick on MacEwen’s shot to make it change direction enough to fool Hildeby.
Jacob Quillan tied the game on a slick three-way passing play from a dump-in 2:55 into the third period. Quillan started the play with a hard dump-in around the boards to Roni Hirvonen at the half-boards to the left of Subban. Hirvonen immediately passed the puck up to Robert Mastrosimone in the corner to the left of Subban. Mastrosimone relayed the puck back to Quillan, who headed for the front of the net after starting the play. Quillan beat Subban’s stick side to finish the play.
Nick Abruzzese put the Marlies up 4-3 when he banked a shot off Subban’s right leg into the net from behind the goal line to Subban’s left. The puck had come to Abruzzese from a whiffed one-timer by Steeves. While luck was involved in the goal, it appeared that it was an intentional shot by Abruzzese, as there was no one in front of the Belleville net or the puck’s path. Either way, it worked in what would prove to be the game’s winning goal.
Hildeby stopped 35 of 38 shots to pick up his fourth win for the Marlies and fifth win in a row, counting his 5-3 victory over the Buffalo Sabres backstopping the Maple Leafs on Dec. 15.
Individual Player Highlights for the Marlies
Three Marlies players had three points over the two games. All three had a goal and two assists each. Steeves scored his 16th goal in his 20th game, which keeps him tied for third place in AHL goal-scoring. The Hershey Bears’ Ethen Frank leads the league with 20 goals. Steeves has played 10 or more games less than any of the other players in the top three. Steeves is ninth in overall scoring with 28 points.
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After registering just a single point in his first eight games, Villeneuve’s three points in these two contests give him 11 in his last 10 games. On Saturday, his first goal of the season was added to his 11 assists. Villeneuve’s 12 points give him the lead in Marlies’ scoring, two points ahead of Topi Niemela.
Abruzzese’s three points moved him into a tie for third place in team scoring with 18 – tied with the absent Logan Shaw. Shaw has been away playing for Canada in the Spengler Cup in Switzerland.
The other Marlie to have multiple points in the two games was Quillan, who had his second and third goals of the season. The Maple Leafs signed the 22-year-old as an unrestricted free agent out of college. Until recently, he has been recognized for his strong defensive play and has spent most of his time on the Marlies’ fourth line. It has just been in recent games where his offensive skills have come to the forefront.
After struggling throughout the early part of the season, Hildeby has been playing better lately. He stopped 66 of the 69 shots over the two games, allowing three goals in 120 minutes. He has posted a record of 4-2-2 in eight appearances for the Marlies with a 2.42 goals-against average and .916 save percentage.
Because the Marlies have the best record in the AHL’s East Division, their head coach, John Gruden, will be the East Conference coach for the AHL All-Star game, which the Coachella Valley Firebirds will host on Feb. 2 and 3, 2025.
What’s Next for the Marlies?
The Marlies play three games at home over five days, starting with a 2:00 pm game on New Year’s Day against the Syracuse Crunch. They follow that up with two 4:00 pm games on Saturday and Sunday versus the Cleveland Monsters. Despite having the best overall record in the league, the Marlies are tied for second in the AHL’s North Division, with the Monsters at 39 points, two points behind the Rochester Americans. The Marlies have played four fewer games than the Americans and three fewer than the Monsters.
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Toronto has one more home game on Jan. 8 against the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins before they head out on the most gruelling road trip. They will play ten games in six different cities over 22 days, going to the West Coast and stopping in Winnipeg, Manitoba.
[Note: I want to thank long-time Maple Leafs fan Stan Smith for collaborating with me on this post. Stan’s Facebook profile can be found here.]
