On Wednesday night, the Rochester Americans headed north of the border in an attempt to salvage their Calder Cup dreams.
Unfortunately for the Americans, the Marlies were able to hang on for dear life – which had been the theme throughout this series.
Forward Tage Thompson would go in the books as the only goalscorer of the game for the Americans, his second goal of the postseason.
Tage Thompson goal to tie the game 1-1. pic.twitter.com/unqvvMaMsH
— Let’s Go Amerks (@LetsGoAmerks) April 25, 2019
Forward Adam Brooks did all the heavy lifting for the Marlies, capturing all three goals in Game Three.
Rochester would end up falling to Toronto, 3-1.
This loss puts a bow on the seventh straight postseason appearance in which the Americans find themselves knocked out of the Calder Cup playoffs in the first round.
To put that into perspective, Rochester has not gotten themselves out of the first round since the 2004-05 postseason.
Moral victories are by no means a thing in the postseason but Toronto Marlies head coach Sheldon Keefe had great things to say about the Americans following Game Three.
“First of all, I think I want to talk about Rochester because you look back on those first two games especially and they gave us all we could handle,” Keefe told collected media. “The could have gone entirely different. We got great goaltending and lots of luck. So hats off to them, it’s a great hockey team. That’s a really good hockey team that’s built to win the Calder Cup this year and had full expectation that they were going to do so.”
Rochester will begin their summer sooner than expected and look to rebuild themselves into an even more dangerous team heading into the 2019-20 AHL season.