In last night's amazing win over the Albany Devils, the Toronto Marlies had great skilled play from Kasperi Kapanen, William Nylander and the Connors Brown and Carrick to get the game tied late in the third. Kapanen danced the puck into the net to tie the game at 2-2, and Carrick had the go-ahead goal off a Nylander play until Albany tied it back up.
Albany was clogging the neutral zone and checking hard and effectively, disrupting all of the Marlies beautiful offence. Sometimes you need a different kind of offence to bust through the clog.
Wait, is that Rich Clune's entrance music I hear? It is.
Rich Clune makes it 4-3 on a play that was everyone working hard, every player had a hand in it, but it was Clune hanging around the net-front who took the opportunity to win the game and send the Marlies to the Eastern Conference Finals.
After the game, Clune talked mostly about how he was proud to play in Toronto, and he said the usual post-game things about keeping the focus on the next round and how they had to stick to Sheldon Keefe's system. He sounds like an experienced player giving the media the standard lines.
But when asked about Andrew "Soupy" Campbell, Clune had this to say, big smile firmly in place:
Yeah, I mean, I love Soupy. Soupy is like my brother. Soupy was the guy who, I moved into his house after I turned my life around and he got me eating right and all that other stuff. You know, I've got Soupy's back forever, and to share it with him...
I mean, we got such a rise out of him coming back [from injury], that he's our motivational leader in my eyes, he's one of my mentors, and he was great for us today. You know, he's solid, he does what he does.Asked about the final minute when the Marlies had to hold the line against the surging Devils:
That's Soup. We're kind of cut from the same cloth. He's greasy, he's savvy, he's intelligent, he's tough. He is one of the toughest guys I know. The guy will put his face in front of a puck to keep it out of our net. He'll play injured.That's Soup. And that's Clune too.
The full post-game from Clune:
