Toronto Marlies Notebook: A Weekend Worth Forgetting

Absences

In one of the first notebooks, I discussed how this Marlies roster exhibited such a level of depth, they could withstand the loss of pretty much any player and fail to skip a beat.

What I didn’t account for, however, was them losing five of their best players.

Yes, The Marlies were forced to take on the powerhouse Manitoba Moose while missing the likes of Kasperi Kapanen, Nikita Soshnikov, Travis Dermott, Timothy Liljegren, Mason Marchment, and, for one game, Martin Marincin.

That is absolutely absurd.

Kapanen, despite playing only playing 16 games, is third on the team in goals. Soshnikov, despite playing in only 14, is tied with Marchment for seventh in points.

Liljegren is currently on pace to shatter the AHL record for most points-per-game by an 18-year-old defenceman. And both Dermott and Marincin have alternated as the Marlies top D-man on a nightly basis.

To play a peewee team while suffering losses of such a magnitude would be a daunting task, let alone the most dominant team in the league.

When asked if the absences had impacted his team’s play, Sheldon Keefe had this to say: (side note: if you skip to 1:32 of the embedded video, you’ll hear a question from yours truly)

"I don’t know if we’ve ever dressed what I would call our best lineup in any one game this entire season. So, I don’t think it has any impact. We have the ability with our depth and the group that we have to win games."

If what Keefe said was true, it means the Toronto Marlies have posted a record of 21-7-0 without ever icing their best lineup. Wow.