Marlies With Greater Goals In Mind Than Postseason Birth

For the Toronto Marlies, it was only a matter of time until they punched their ticket to the 2023 Calder Cup Playoffs. With 40 wins in their first 59 games, the Marlies have long enjoyed a comfortable lead atop the North Division standings for much of the season.

Though it comes on the heels of a 5-0 shutout loss on home ice Friday afternoon, the Marlies clinched a playoff spot Friday night after the Utica Comets defeated the Laval Rocket in regulation.

But when it comes to the Marlies, they clearly have their sights set on contending for the Calder Cup championship. Qualifying for the playoffs - a foregone conclusion for quite some time - is merely the first step.

"We've been waiting for April for some time now," Marlies alternate captain Joseph Blandisi told InsideAHLHockey.com last weekend. "We're excited to get it going."

Entering Saturday afternoon's rematch against Charlotte, the Marlies have 12 games remaining on their regular season schedule. While they still have a little ways to go to clinch the North Division's number one seed - a combination of 10 points by the Marlies or any points in the standings not achieved by Utica over the course of their final 12 games - for teams already in the playoffs it's about fine-tuning for the postseason.

"There's not a lot of games left for us to find the consistency and what we want to look like here," Marlies coach Greg Moore explained after the team's recent win over Wilkes-Barre/Scranton. "Every team is competing for points, everyone's desperate to be in the playoffs. So really, this time of the season, almost every game starting to feel playoff[-like]. So, it'll be a good test for us every game to make sure that we're getting better. We're finding our way on what we want to look like and having teams push against us to challenge us to be better."

While the Marlies have had their fair share of blowout wins along the way this season, it's been their ability to win and close out tight games that has Toronto where they are in the standings in mid-March. Almost half (29 of 60) of their games to date have been one-goal affairs, with the Marlies going an insane 20-6-3 in one-goal contests.

It's that kind of battle-tested, tight-game situational play that will pay dividends down the stretch and in the postseason, where scoring inevitably dries up and offensive chances get harder to create.

Time will tell what the future has in store for the Marlies this spring, but one thing's for certain - Toronto is definitely a contender in the AHL's Eastern Conference and will be a team to watch down the stretch.

"I've said this in most of my interviews now, but there's a family in that dressing room," Blandisi stated. "We all believe in one another. We all want to win together. We're dying for the guy next to us. And I think whenever you have that bond over a team of 25 guys, you're definitely bound to get special responses."