The Marlies in Scotland: Marlies 1-3 Diet Habs

Editor's Note: Our dapper Scottish correspondent article1 graces us with his final update on the Ice Hockey's Homecoming Tournament game. A special thanks to him for keeping us aprised of the baby Leafs travails overseas.

In between watching YouTube clips of that save, I found time to head down to Murrayfield and take in the last game of the Marlies trip across the pond. Unfortunately, they were beaten pretty comfortably by the Hamilton Bulldogs.

I like Reimer's mask. I hoped it was a Marlies version of The Monster's, but the other side is a mirror image of this. Reimer did pretty well, considering. He couldn't really do much about the goals he gave up and wasn't given the best support by the guys in front of him.

The goal the Marlies scored came after Giliati won the puck and fed Dale Mitchell who fired a shot from the hashmarks that went 5-hole to make it 2-1. The Marlies best line tonight was Mitchell - Stefano Giliati - Mikhail Stefanovich. They showed a bit of jump, some speed and flashes of ability.

And Giliati's a truculent little bastard.

Giliati got tripped on a faceoff and responded by punching this guy in the face. They took offsetting penalties and then had a fight as soon as they stepped back on the ice. Somewhere, someplace, Brian Burke smiled.

The story of this game were the penalties. Phil Oreskovic, Mitchell and Alex Berry all took offsetting roughing penalties within the first ten minutes. That was pugnacious, truculent and cool. It got worse after that.

Trailing 1-0 in the first, Juraj Mikus took a weird boarding penalty. I say weird because the other guy didn't go into the boards on the hit. Part-way through that penalty, Robert Slaney high-sticked someone and took a double minor. At the start of the second - with 1.30 left on Slaney's second penalty - Oreskovic was whistled for cross-checking. The Bulldogs scored with 1 second left on the 5-on-3. All in all, the Marlies spent about six-and-a-half minutes short-handed.

Toronto also didn't see any power-play time after mid-way through the fist. They had a minute of 5-on-3 and did nothing with it. Over three minutes of PP time without registering a shot. And then took lots of penalties. Disappointing.

MOAR TRUCULENSE, PLZ. KTHXBAI.

See. I said Oreskovic suits the hobo beard.

Slaney didn't show anything this weekend in the offensive zone despite playing on what I assume was the top line. He seems solid defensively, though. Played well on the PK. Just as well, really. 

Remember these faces - half of them are going to be injury call-ups on Friday morning.