The Marlies faced the Hamilton Hammers on Friday night at their home opener. It was their second game of the season against them after winning last weekend 5-3, coming out very strong going up 4-0 in the first period.

This game played out differently. Arty Akhtyamov was in net again for the Marlies, while Vítek Vaněček was in net for the Hammers. What a strange journeyman career Vaněček has had—from the AHL to the NHL (even winning the Stanley Cup and appearing in playoff games for the Panthers), and now back in the AHL under contract to the Islanders. The Hammers roster also features our favourite giraffe, Pierre Engvall.

The Marlies lineup was largely the same as the last game, Borya Valis and Landon Sim swapped sides and Marc Johnstone was back in the lineup. It recreated the Pezzetta-Johnstone-Sim line used in the playoffs last season.

The Game and Marlies Highlights

After the initial opening ceremonies were done, it started in a bit of an uncharacteristic way for the Marlies, with the Hammers quickly containing them on defence and pushing play to the boards where the Marlies would turnover the puck and the Hammers would quickly move it forward from there. I noticed this dissipated as the game went on.

Sullivan agreed, saying, "It was a little bit self-induced; we didn't get pucks deep. Our decision-making at the offensive blue lines and top of the circles in the offensive zone... they took advantage of our turnovers, turned it around, and created a half-ice game. Those are things we tried to clean up. We talked about it between periods, and as the game progressed, I thought we got better at it. When the third period came around—playing a lot more five-on-five and fewer special teams—I thought we came back well."

Speaking of special teams, that was in part instigated by Landon Sim dropping the gloves against Kashawn Aitcheson, who apparently really doesn't like Sim. I don't know why players on other teams wouldn't love Sim. No idea. But there were a lot of scrums and roughing penalties called through the rest of the game.

The scoring finally opened with the Hammers getting the first goal and then that aforementioned Johnstone line went to work and tied it right back up. While Pezzetta's shot is great, the setup by Johnstone is the real work here. Johnstone could have taken the shot himself, but he saw Pezzetta and he saw Vaněček was out of position to Pezzetta and he immediately snapped the puck over to him.

The Hammers got one back, shifting momentum again in their favour, but then Ryan Tverberg got one back again for the Marlies with help from Luke Haymes making a backwards between the legs pass to Ben Danford who spotted Tverberg uncovered who tied the game 2-2. Perfect execution, though I'm sure any backwards between the legs pass attempt will give the coach a heart attack.

It was tied 2-2 at the end of the first.

Vinni Lettieri put the Marlies ahead 3-2 25 seconds into the second period with an excellent assist by Logan Shaw.

Then Hamilton got two back, the first by Liam Foudy, a first round draft pick in 2018 by the Blue Jackets who has not had a great career, bouncing between the AHL and NHL a lot. As a centre he's played 101 NHL games in that time and scored only 7 goals.

Hamilton's next goal was by Brandon Scanlin, who is actually from Hamilton, had an assist by, you guessed it, Pierre Engvall. So the Marlies were now down again 4-3 at the end of the second.

In the third period, guess who steps up to tie the game again.

Overtime came and went and there was finally time for a shootout, and Vinni went all in one more time.

Coach's Comments

On the Johnstone line and their excellent execution on Pezzetta's goal:

Steve Sullivan: I thought that line there—the Johnstone line—was probably our best line tonight in regards to a complete 200-foot game. I thought they created momentum for us. And yeah, you're right, they were making smart plays. They're all different types of players, but together, the cohesiveness is there; they know where each other is at and they play well together.

Obviously, they had a deep run to the Calder Cup run last year as a line, so they're really comfortable with each other. You could just see on a play like that where they're thinking two steps ahead, understanding where they're going to be, and taking advantage of it.

On Vinni Lettieri's seemingly magical ability to always be the one to score a big goal when you need it the most:

Steve Sullivan: You know what? Goal scorers are goal scorers, and when the time is needed, they kind of just find a way. Cream rises to the top, and when we really need a goal, Vinni is always there. So, it's really good to be able to count on a player like that.

On the unusually strict faceoff rules enforced in the game by the linesman and how there were so many faceoff ejections during the game:

Steve Sullivan: Yeah, we were hoping for quicker play on that and wanted to try to get out of here a little bit quicker. But yeah, they were just trying to get their control of the game early in the season and make sure all the rules are being enforced, so you saw that quite a bit today.

On what to expect in Sunday's game, the final of three in a row against the Hammers:

Steve Sullivan: We're going to see their best, right? Obviously, it's hard to continue to get points against the same team—especially since it's almost like a playoff series, and that's how we're going to treat it. We've got a couple of wins, but we're going to play them ten times this year. Every time we play against them, we want to continue to grow our game and make sure we don't try to give them any momentum.

On Arty getting hit and/or crushed multiple times in the game, once requiring the trainer to come out to make sure he was OK:

Steve Sullivan: Yeah, he did [get hit a lot]. He's tough. He's a tough goaltender; he likes to hold his crease, keep his blue paint, and doesn't like guys coming in there. He took a little bit of a beating, but I'm not surprised he stayed in the net.

Next Games

The next game is in Hamilton against the Hammers again on Sunday at 3:00 p.m.. After that, the Marlies have a home/away series against the Belleville Senators next weekend, with the home game being on Sunday.

Toronto Marlies