The Marlies gave us a great show last night, winning 2-1 in overtime against the Scantron Penguins, pencilling in three home games for this week.

It was a quite a different game than their last win on Wednesday, where at times they looked like they were barely holding on against the Penguins offence. This game they were visibly more robust, more into the game, winning their matchups, and getting performance from all lines.

To start, well, you can always count on a Nylander to get one on the power play.

The game finished tied 1-1, so it went to OT and then this happened.

The goal went for a long review to see how the puck actually got in the net, whether it was batted in high by Marc Johnstone (who used to play for the Penguins) or if there was interference, it wasn't clear what they were actually checking, but it found that Johnstone never even touched the puck and the goal was awarded to Michael Pezzetta.

So the Marlies come back to Toronto with a 2-0 series lead. The game schedule here is Monday Wednesday and Friday, all at 7:00 p.m. at the Coliseum.

On the other side of the league, the Chicago Wolves are up by one game on the Colorado Eagles, and a Toronto-Chicago final would be lots of fun. The Wolves, by the way, are the Carolina Hurricanes AHL affiliate. Which brings us to what else happened last night.

The Canadiens imploded and it will be very interesting in the coming 48 hours to see play out the narrative revisionism by some and we may even get some reactionary finger-pointing, which how refreshing is it that it's not the Leafs we have to see go through that right now. We can just sit here and enjoy.

Here's the TSN breakdown and to their credit, they weren't really on the Habs bandwagon, or at least nowhere near to the degree that Sportsnet has been.

Game #1 of the Stanley Cup Final is on Tuesday in Carolina at 8:00 p.m. ET

The NHL combine starts on Sunday.

McKenna, Stenberg among 90 draft prospects attending NHL Scouting Combine | NHL.com
Event gives teams chance to assess players through interviews, physical testing
NHL logoMike G. Morreale

One final note, there is no GO train service on most of Lakeshore West or the Barrie lines for this entire weekend.

VIA Rail is operating between Aldershot and Union via a detour routing that skips Oakville.

Canada plays Finland today at the IIHF World Championship at 2:00 p.m., broadcast on TSN.

Enjoy your weekend

From The Branches