Toronto Marlies Notebook: It’s Baun to the Next One

Thinning Depth

Earlier this morning, the Marlies took on a divisional rival in the Syracuse Crunch. During warm-up, their lineup looked like this:

Now, let’s rewind the clock back to October 7th, 2017, opening night of the AHL season. As the Marlies prepared to kick off the year, these were the line rushes:

And these were the defence pairings:

Clearly, a lot has changed.

Rychel, Soshnikov and Kasperi Kapanen, who once accounted for half of the Marlies top two lines, have either been traded or promoted to full-time NHL duty.

Ben Smith and Dmytro Timashov, fourth liners on opening day, now find themselves anchoring the first line. Bracco and Mason Marchment are now key members of the Marlies’ PP units. On opening day, they didn’t even crack the lineup.

The staggering depth this team once possessed in October handed a rare luxury; control.

Control over the kids, allowing them to be eased into the rigours of the professional level for the first time. And control over the vets, who could then be spared from the mental and physical toll of three-in-threes by way of positional rotations.

Five months later, that’s no longer the case.

Now, is when we can be given a glimpse of just how good this team really is. Can they continue their dominance with depth players like Jean Dupuy replacing Bracco and Marchment as scratches? Will their defensive game start slipping now that the Valiev-Justin Holl pairing is disbanded?

Don’t look now, but the Marlies have dropped five of their last seven.

Two of those losses came against the last-place Hershey Bers and Binghamton Devils, games where they appeared to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

Let this be a reminder that success in the AHL is never a guarantee. Not even for a team set to make history.