Marlies hold serve, force Game 7 in North Finals

Photo: Graig Abel

Andrew Nielsen‘s goal with 8:27 left in regulation broke a tie and sent Toronto to a 2-1 win over Syracuse in Game 6 of the North Division Finals at Ricoh Coliseum on Monday night.

Game 7 will be Wednesday evening in Syracuse, with the winner advancing to the Eastern Conference Finals against either Hershey or Providence. The home team has won each of the first six games in the series.

Nielsen fired a shot through traffic from the center point during a Marlies power play for his first goal of the postseason.

Syracuse opened the scoring with its fourth shorthanded goal of the series as Michael Bournival won a race to a loose puck and chipped a shot past Kasimir Kaskisuo at 2:09 of the second period.

But the Marlies pulled even at 7:24 when Carl Grundstrom scored a power-play goal on a wraparound, his third goal of the series.

Kaskisuo (5-2) made 27 saves for the Marlies, who are 5-0 on home ice this postseason. Mike McKenna (6-4) stopped 23 shots.

Toronto was 2-for-6 on the power play in Game 6, improving to 8-for-29 (27.6 percent) in the series. Syracuse was 0-for-2.

North Division Finals – Series “J” (best-of-7)
N1-Syracuse Crunch vs. N2-Toronto Marlies
Game 1 – Fri., May 5 – SYRACUSE 3, Toronto 1
Game 2 – Sat., May 6 – SYRACUSE 8, Toronto 5
Game 3 – Tue., May 9 – TORONTO 5, Syracuse 3
Game 4 – Wed., May 10 – TORONTO 3, Syracuse 2
Game 5 – Sat., May 13 – SYRACUSE 5, Toronto 1
Game 6 – Mon., May 15 – TORONTO 2, Syracuse 1
Game 7 – Wed., May 17 – Toronto at Syracuse, 7:00
*if necessary… All times Eastern