Moose cruise past Marlies

February 12, 2010 - American Hockey League (AHL)
Manitoba Moose News Release


The Manitoba Moose continued their perfect record against the Marlies this season when they beat the Toronto club 5-1 in front of 7,736 fans at MTS Centre on Friday night. Manitoba has now earned six of a possible six points against the Marlies this season. Marco Rosa and Michael Grabner each potted a pair of goals while Lawrence Nycholat rounded out the scoring. Goaltender Cory Schneider stopped 25 of 26 attempts in his 22nd victory this season.

Manitoba's Nathan McIver drew the first penalty of the night when he was charged for holding at 4:41. In their debut outing, the home town penalty killers were solid, allowing only one shot on goaltender Cory Schneider during the two-minutes.

A slashing penalty handed to Marco Rosa at 7:32 put the visiting Marlies on their second powerplay of the night. Toronto evened the odds however, when Brendan Mikkelson and Kyle Rogers were handed overlapping penalties giving the Moose a 13 second five-on-three. The Moose failed to capitalize on their pair of man-advantages, but they did lead the shot clock 12-6.

Five-on-five hockey paid off for Manitoba at 12:34. Tom Galvin's blast from the point was stopped by netminder Joey MacDonald, but Marco Rosa earned his 15th goal of the season when he backhanded the puck around the goalie's sprawled left goal pad to open the scoring.

Manitoba opened the second period with a bang, scoring two goals in less than a minute. At 2:55 Mario Bliznak's feed to Lawrence Nycholat allowed the veteran defenseman to snap the puck into the open back door for a 2-0 tally. The second marker was courtesy of Michael Grabner, who broke his 14-game goalless drought when he carried the puck over a collapsed MacDonald for a 3-0 lead at 3:23.

At 7:11 Dan Sexton completed a pretty pass when he slid the disc between his defender's skates and straight to the end Marco Rosa's stick. The centre man then fired the puck into the top left corner of Toronto's net to score his second of the game and put Manitoba in a four-goal lead.

Toronto broke their goose-egg in the dying minutes of the second period. In an odd man-rush, Alex Berry and Phil Oreskovic stormed towards Schneider's crease. Playing both sides of the ice, the duo psyched out the third year ‘tender when Berry went high to get on the scoreboard, 4-1.

Three Manitoba players were penalized in the early half of the third period but the Marlies couldn't succeed on their powerplay. With three minutes left in the game a line brawl erupted letting Tommy Maxwell and Pierre-Cedric Labrie prove their tough-guy labels. The remainder of the game was consumed by back and forth play and Michael Grabner scored a last minute powerplay goal to confirm a 5-1 victory for the Moose.



American Hockey League Stories from February 12, 2010


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