Toronto Marlies Go From Domination on the Road to Struggles at Home – The Hockey Writers Toronto Maple Leafs Latest News, Analysis & More

Hockey is a streaky game. Teams go through good and bad streaks. Players go through good and bad streaks. Sometimes, these streaks seem to have no rhyme or reason. The Toronto Maple Leafs American Hockey League (AHL) affiliate Toronto Marlies are presently on two streaks. The Marlies returned home from a 10-game West Coast road trip this past weekend, where they posted a great 7-2-1 record.

Related: Canucks’ Elias Pettersson Will Greatly Benefit From 4 Nations Face-Off Break

They hosted the first-place Laval Rocket last weekend and lost both games. The first was by a 5-2 score. The second was a 3-2 shootout loss. That leaves the Marlies with a 0-5-1 home record since the calendar rolled over to 2025. If you combine those two records in 16 games in 2025, they are a .500 team at 7-7-2. Their road-winning percentage is excellent. Their home-winning percentage is miserable.

Game One: Laval Rocket 5 – Marlies 2

In the first game of last weekend, 23-year-old Sean Farrell, a fourth-round, 124th-overall pick of the Montreal Canadiens in the 2020 NHL Entry Draft, was the Marlie-killer, scoring his first professional hat trick. Farrell opened the scoring at 15:23 of the first period and made it 3-1 Rocket at 3:30 of the second. He completed the hat trick just 1:06 after the Marlies came within a goal, making it 3-2 at 7:16 of the middle stanza. Jared Davidson also potted one for Laval, and Lucas Condotta added an empty-netter to put the game away late in the third.

Alex Steeves scored his league-leading 26th goal to tie the game at 1-1 late in the first period. The Marlies Ryan Tverberg got the 3-2 goal before the Rocket pulled away in the second. Dennis Hildeby allowed four goals on 21 shots in the loss.

Game Two: Laval Rocket 3 – Marlies 2 SO

The story of the weekend’s second game was the Marlies’ power play failing to take advantage of the multitude of penalties the Rocket were called for. After trailing 2-1 going into the second, Jacob Quillan scored a power-play goal at 5:44 of the middle period to tie the game up. But Toronto failed to score on five power-play chances after that, including a full two-minute 4-on-3 in overtime.

Related: Carey Price: Saying Farewell to a Canadiens Legend

How futile was the power play? Despite the Marlies having seven chances with the extra man to the Rocket’s one, the Marlies managed to fire just one more shot at the Laval net than Laval fired at Toronto’s goal in the game. The final shots were 32-31 Toronto. In the shootout, the first two Laval shooters beat Marlies starter Artur Akhtyamov. Neither Alex Nylander nor Steeves were able to beat Laval goalie Connor Hughes.

Zach Solow scored in a way we’ve never seen before. To set the scene, Rocket defenseman Noel Hoefenmayer stood behind the Laval goal, waiting for his linemates to change. As you often see, a Marlies player was standing in front of the goal, waiting to see what Hoefenmayer would do with the puck. While stationary, Hoefenmayer slowly stickhandled the puck back and forth, looking up-ice.

As he pulled the puck to his forehand, he lost the puck, which slowly rolled off the tip of his stick out front of the net to the left of Hughes. At that precise moment, Hughes looked back at Hoefenmayer over his right shoulder. The puck squirted to Solow, who immediately banged it into the net before Hughes knew what had happened. While Hughes and Hoefenmayer looked in disbelief, Solow was celebrating his gift. Unfortunately for the Marlies, Hughes did not allow another puck to get by him after that.

What’s Next for the Marlies?

These two games had close to the worst possible outcome for the Marlies if they had any aspirations of winning the AHL’s North Division. Losing three of a possible four points to the Rocket leaves them eight out of first with a single game in hand. Toronto remains in fourth place in the division, a point behind the Cleveland Monsters with two games in hand and seven points ahead of the Syracuse Crunch, also with two games in hand.

Related: Maple Leafs News & Rumors: Matthews, Petruzzelli, Minten, Grebenkin & Murray

The next two weeks will be busy for the Marlies. Starting on Wednesday, they play four games in six days. Following the Crunch game on Wednesday, they play home-and-home with the Belleville Senators on Friday and Saturday, followed by another game at the Coca-Cola Coliseum against the Rocket on Monday.

The weekend after, they play three games in three days and another four games in six days. All three games that weekend involve travel. They are in Syracuse for a rematch against the Crunch on Friday. They skip over to take on the Rochester Americans on Saturday. They return home and host the Manitoba Moose on Sunday. The following Wednesday, they play another “School Game,” hosting the Rocket again.

[Note: I want to thank long-time Maple Leafs fan Stan Smith for collaborating with me on this post. Stan’s Facebook profile can be found here.]