The division final round ends this afternoon with Game 5 in the North Division between the Cleveland Monsters and the Toronto Marlies at Rocket Arena (3 ET, 
).
It is the ninth winner-take-all game in this year’s Calder Cup Playoffs, the most ever in a single postseason. The Marlies have already won two such contests, defeating Rochester at home in the first round and rallying past Laval on the road in the division semis.
Today’s winner takes on the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins in the Eastern Conference Finals. The Monsters are vying for their second conference finals appearance in three years; the Marlies have reached the AHL’s final four on six occasions, most recently in 2019.
Toronto pushed the series to today’s Game 5 with a 5-2 victory on Friday evening. Ryan Tverberg (5-3-8) tallied two goals and an assist and Artur Akhtyamov (6-4, 2.20, .922) made 36 saves.
“It was a good win, but we have to have a short memory,” Akhtyamov said. “We need to win one more game. We’re going to keep going.”
“They found their confidence,” head coach John Gruden said of his team in Game 4. “We’ve just got to bring it again. We’ve got to bottle that up and understand what was successful, make sure we’re ready to go.”
Toronto’s opening 20 minutes on Thursday set the tone for the rest of the game. Tverberg’s power-play goal 13:28 in marked the first time in the series that the Marlies had scored the game’s first goal or scored in the first period. It also allowed them to take a lead into an intermission for the first time all series.
Toronto also recorded 11 shots on goal in the first period, ending a stretch of 17 consecutive periods in single digits.
“Our fourth line – the Johnson–Pezzetta–Sim line – brought that energy and drew that penalty, and we were able to capitalize on the power play,” Gruden said. “It was a huge confidence boost for our group.”
Alex Nylander (3-0-3) also scored a power-play goal as Toronto went 2-for-5 on the man advantage in Game 4. Logan Shaw (5-5-10) and Jacob Quillan (1-4-5) added a goal and an assist apiece.
“We got off our script with some discipline early. We want to play five-on-five as much as possible,” said Monsters head coach Trent Vogelhuber. “Give credit to a team that was desperate and a goalie that played really well.”
