Marlies double down in OT
No time to celebrate Gauthier’s gritty winner, Game 3 on road Sunday Frederik Gauthier’s winner in double overtime ended Saturday’s marathon Game 2.
Marlies centre Freddie Gauthier, whose tenure in the Maple Leafs organization has revolved around his ability to kill penalties and win key faceoffs, rarely encounters a chance to take on the role of playoff hero.
And when Gauthier scored the game-winner with 4:50 left in the second overtime period Saturday night, he said he wasn’t doing anything heroic.
“I was just trying to get a shot on net … I fell on my first try, so that’s all I was trying to do: get the puck on the net,” Gauthier said after he flipped a puck from his knees — from a sharp angle on the side boards, no less — to give the Marlies a 2-1 win over the Syracuse Crunch at Ricoh Coliseum and a 2-0 lead in their second-round best-of-seven series.
Gauthier capped off nearly five hours of hockey against a fast, well-coached — by Benoit Groulx — Syracuse squad that dominated the second extra pe- riod, but couldn’t find a way to beat the best player on the ice: Marlies goalie Garret Sparks.
As veterans, Gauthier and Sparks — who have been in the Leafs organization for five and six years, respectively — were expected to show leadership in big moments. But in Gauthier’s case, his contributions have had more to do with preventing goals than scoring them.
“I just think that for a guy who’s been here in this organization as long as he has, and having the expectations he’s had placed on him, his game is not scoring goals … but he competed hard and he competed for five periods and he got rewarded, and so we all did,” Sparks said, summing up the victory.
Gauthier and the Marlies celebrated, then inhaled food and recovery supplements because their weekend isn’t over just yet. The teams will be right back at it in Game 3, Sunday at 7:30 p.m. in Syracuse.
“I think everyone is tired, so we have to get some rest and it’s going to be high intensity (Sunday). It’ll be 3-2 or 2-1, and it will be a huge game for both teams,” Gauthier said. Mason Marchment had the other goal for the Marlies, and his line with Trevor Moore and Adam Brooks was the Marlies’ best for the second straight contest. But everyone in a Marlies uniform agreed on who the best individual player was: Sparks.
“I’m tired and it’s a long game, and you want to win a game like that, but we got a goalie who’s great and he’s there for us,” Marchment said.
While fatigue was certainly setting in during that second overtime, the players will look to recover quickly as the series shifts to Syracuse against the team that knocked the Marlies out of the playoffs last spring. Focus, said Marlies coach Sheldon Keefe, will be the key.
“When you play that long, in such a fast and competitive game, there’s a high level of discipline and mental toughness needed to pull it out,” said Keefe, whose club scored two power-play goals in Game 1 but went 0-for-5 on the power play Saturday.
Gauthier’s winner barely slipped past Syracuse goalie Connor Ingram and the post. Asked if it was the biggest goal of his career, Gauthier said: “I think so. Both teams were going at it hard, so it was great to come out with that win.”