Montreal Canadiens: Brandon Marino Extends the Beast Streak to Six

The Brampton Beast (Montreal Canadiens ECHL affiliate) has turned completely turned their season around now winning their sixth game in a row.

Not everything in the Montreal Canadiens organization is down in the dumps. The Brampton Beast had another school day game Thursday morning at the Powerade Centre looking to build on their latest wave of positivity against the Kalamazoo Wings.

The game didn’t start in the Beast’s favour as the Wings were sustaining a lot of pressure in the offensive zone. Goaltender Marcus Hogberg had to make several big stops and even survived the big crowd in front of him halfway through the first. Unfortunately, the dam finally broke as Danny Moynihan fired one off the water bottle to put Kalamazoo up by one. The pace of the game picked up again after that one, but the rest of the period remained goalless.

Brampton ran into penalty trouble in the next portion of the match, but it didn’t seem to slow them down one bit. There were odd-man rushes shorthanded in favour of the Beast, and Jackson Leef even got a breakaway coming out of the box, but he was stopped by Joel Martin. The Wings goaltender couldn’t stop Chris Leveille who tied the game at one.

Eric Ylitalo put Brampton ahead after more chances by the Wings including a breakaway which Hogberg turned aside. That was Ylitalo’s first of his ECHL career.

Captain Brandon Marino also had a great game at this point. He had already assisted on Leveille’s goal and continued to generate scoring chances for the team. One of which was a one-on-three and he still managed to get the shot across.

Neither team slowed down in the third period. The Beast had some good looks on the power play a sweet cross-crease pass from Marino to Stefan Fourier in front of the net and a solid individual effort from Kevin Dufour. Both were stopped by Martin.

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The Wings took the wind out of Brampton’s sails however as they tied the game with 1:15 left in the game. Lane Scheidl scored with the extra attacker on the ice from a shot that got through a bunch of bodies and sticks. We were headed to three-on-three overtime, and what an overtime period it was.

Penalties were apparently not a thing anymore as the refs let a number of infractions go. Both Dufour and Leveille had breakaways, but neither of them was able to beat Martin. That was until Marino decided to end things. The 31-year-old broke in the offensive zone and send a backhand shot past the Wild netminder to finish the game.

It was Marino’s seventh goal of the season and Brampton’s sixth win in this streak. Hogberg was named the first star of the game and rightly so as he made 53 saves

The team will have a chance to make it seven on Sunday against the Toledo Walleye. If they do that, they’ll tie a franchise record.

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What are your thoughts on the game? Can Brampton make it seven on Sunday? Let us know down below.