Toronto Maple Leafs: Marlies Finally Hitting Their Stride

While the Toronto Maple Leafs seem to be losing their stride, their AHL affiliate is starting finds theirs at the exact same moment.

In the grand scheme of life, 16 hours is not much time. In sports, however, it’s even less.

Just ask science.

A 2017 study conducted by Northumbria University found that athletes who participated in competitive soccer matches typically experienced “substantial declines in neuromuscular function, physical performance, and subjective measures of fatigue” upon completion and that those effects “…may last up to 72 hours post-match”.

To break that all down in layman’s terms; soccer players generally feel the effects of a full game’s worth of physical strain for roughly 3 days after stepping off the field, impacting various areas including hand-eye coordination, reflexes, and hydration levels.

Those seem important, right?

This is a study pertaining to soccer, of course – a sport which the Toronto Marlies do not play. And while hockey and soccer certainly bear their respective differences when placed under a microscope, they are still thought to be two of the most demanding team sports that exist in the world today, in both a physical and mental capacity.

Case in point; if it takes the average soccer player roughly 72 hours to recover, it’s not unreasonable to think the average hockey player wouldn’t be far behind.

Those thought-to-be precious 72 hours were not given to the Marlies this past weekend as they began the first stretch of what will ultimately be a three-week road trip. Not even close.

After besting the AHL leading Checkers in statement fashion the night prior – a game which ventured past the 60 minutes of regulation and into overtime – the notoriously gruelling AHL schedule granted them just 16 hours of rest from the previous game’s final buzzer to puck drop the next day.

Let’s take a brief pause for a moment to put that into perspective. If the Marlies’ players had attempted to squeeze the entire Harry Potter film series into their 16-hour layoff, they wouldn’t have even made it through The Half-Blood Prince before finding their way back to the rink for round two.

Those movies may be long. But they’re not that long. And certainly not long enough to recover from 3 and a half periods of hockey.

Obviously, these were less than ideal circumstances for a Marlies team trying desperately to claw itself into playoff contention. Facing the league’s best opponent, on the road, with a struggling backup in net, a defence corps missing two key pieces, and on fewer than a full day’s rest, Sheldon Keefe’s squad needed only to clear a bar set so cavernously low, anything outside of an abject disaster would’ve been a tolerable outcome.

But the Marlies didn’t just clear that bar. In fact, their ensuing 5-0 beatdown of the Checkers launched them miles above it, improving their record to a respectable 21-15-3-2 on the year while managing to nudge them ahead of Utica for 3rd in the North Division as well, and with four games in hand.

For the Marlies to be sitting in a playoff spot today, given everything that has transpired this season leading up, is simply incredible. This reality was not thought possible less than a month ago.

And for good reason, too.

A collective .880 save percentage. Long-term injuries to their two most coveted defence prospects. Significant midseason personnel turnover. The constant, month-long yo-yoing of both their leading scorer and presumed starting goaltender.

The Marlies faced all of that, endured, and still managed to fight their way back into the thick of the AHL postseason picture with roughly 40% of the schedule left to play. For the entirety of the season, they were simply thought of as the team with limitless potential who constantly failed to reach it.

Now, they finally have the means to do so.

Where this all starts and ends is with Michael Hutchinson who, following a longer-than-expected stint up with the Leafs in late-December, has joined the Marlies’ to serve as their entrenched starter for what projects to be the remainder of the year.

Hutchinson’s importance to this team is hard to overstate. They trust him – which is something that cannot have been said for all who preceded him.

With Hutchinson in net, the Marlies are given freedom; freedom to shed their formerly timid nature, freedom to dictate the play, and freedom employ the patented possession-heavy, aggressive style this team has long been associated with.

Whereas a lack of goaltending forced all facets of the roster into a restrictive and conservative shell earlier this season, the defence can now move the puck, forwards can now fly the zone, and risks can now ultimately be taken with little thought being paid to every minuscule mistake winding up in the wrong net.

Simply put, Hutchinson is an NHL-calibre goaltender. And what dictates success at the AHL level tends to be the number of NHL players one has on their roster.

Last season’s Marlies benefited from this mantra immensely; with a forward corps led by Andreas Johnsson and Kasperi Kapanen, a blueline featuring Travis Dermott and Justin Holl, and a pair of NHLers in Garret Sparks and Calvin Pickard in net.

All three roster levels benefited from their own NHL options.

What Hutchinson does now is allow this iteration of the Marlies to make a similar claim; only this time with Sam Gagner and Trevor Moore serving as the pillars upfront, with Calle Rosen – recently signed to a 2-year NHL extension – shoring up the backend.

Then there’s the question of assets, both young and old, who aren’t quite of NHL-calibre but still productive nonetheless.

Jeremy Bracco, for one, is a prime example of this. In just his second year of AHL action, the 22-year-old is a point-per-game player at the moment whose 30 assists lead the entire American League and whose 10 goals this year nearly double that of his entire rookie total, albeit coming in 10 fewer games.

Bracco, funnily enough, is not the lone Marlie performing at an above point-per-game clip right now, either. Chris Mueller joins him in the AHL’s top-ten, and with 41 points in 39 games, Mueller also happens to lead the Marlies in goals, power play goals, and game winners, while falling second only to Bracco in power play assists.

To truly hammer home the extent of this team’s weaponry, consider how the lowest points-per-game average among the Marlies’ top-10 point leaders belongs to Dmytro Timashov, who currently sits at a 0.68.

That pace would give him 50 points were it extrapolated over a full AHL season.

Save for the recent addition of Gabriel Gagne, this roster has remained largely intact for the bulk of this season. It just took a goaltender and the trust he brought with him to help them hit their peak.

The final stretch of the season is sure to be quite the ride.

Thanks for reading!