The Marlies are on the road in Laval this week to play two games against the Rocket. This comes on the heels of two straight losses last weekend against the Grand Rapids Griffins, the top team in the league right now, who have lost only two of their 22 games so far in the season.

Beating the Griffins was a big challenge, and the Marlies still held out well in the games, especially considering the goalie call ups, leaving Slava Peksa in net for one game and Ken Appleby brought up from the Cincinnati Cyclones for the other.

The Rocket were also a big challenge, not the best team in the league but the best in the North Division, and getting a win against them was critical to building a more solid foundation in the standings.

Things did not start off well, with the Rocket picking up three straight goals in the first period and the Marlies getting little to no offence going, even when gifted opportunities, like Florian Xhekaj making an inexplicable drop pass to one of the Marlies, and an extended power play on a double-minor penalty by the Rocket's Tobie Bisson.

"I thought the effort was there but the execution wasn't. [The Rocket] got the break early there scoring the power play goal, we didn't get anything on our power play," summarised Gruden on the first period.

At 14.3%, the Marlies power play is 26th in the league. For the record in first place are the Milwaukee Admirals at 36.3%. In last place are the Texas Stars at 8.8%, which, wow if you thought the Marlies Power play was bad, they look great in comparison there.

Luke Haymes said there was a lot talked about their play in the intermission in the room. "The leadership is great in our room, so [we are] relying on them and leaning on them for advice," and things quickly changed in the second period, with Gruden noting "you could see the first shift we were ready play. We turned some pucks over, and Shaw's line got us going and then we scored right after that."

So let's to the good stuff, the highlights.

Quillan got it started.

Then Barbolini added to the tally.

The Rocket got one back, but Nylander evened that one out.

Finally, with 1:10 left in the third period, it was Captain Shaw who tied it up and forced the game to OT.

No one scored in overtime, so there really was plenty of time left for a shootout!

Peksa stopped all three attempts from the Rocket in the first round of the shootout, but Kaapo Kähkönen also stopped all three attempts by the Marlies. On to the second round, again Peksa stopped all of three attempts by the Rocket, with the final one being from Xhekaj, a very obvious crowd favourite in Laval given how loud it was when he lined up to shoot and how quiet it got when he was easily stopped. That left the Marlies with one chance to end it before a reset to a third round, and it was up to Luke Haymes who stepped up and ended the game, finally getting a shot past Kähkönen, and getting the win.

Haymes spoke about Peksa on the shootout and said "to keep us in it that long, it was awesome, and he played well for us all game after the first. I know he's going to look to build on that as well." Quillan added "he was unbelievable, he stood on his head, and we wouldn't have won without him."

The Marlies next game is today (Friday) against the Rocket again, then they head back to Toronto to host the Cleveland Monsters on Sunday at 5:00 p.m..

Here are the current standings in the North Division.

Toronto Marlies