The Marlies faced some grim moments on Friday night. After losing to the Belleville Senators in the series opener on Wednesday, they had a must win game in front of them to stave off elimination in their best-of-three series and they made it with a dramatic OT victory. Now their playoff hopes come down to one final game this afternoon where the Marlies and Senators will play a winner take all match to move to the next round of the playoffs.

Friday's game had wild swings of emotion in it, starting off very well for the Marlies and then going off the rails only for a comeback in OT where after only 50 seconds they kept their playoff run alive.

It started off with Joe Blandisi putting the Marlies in front of Belleville and the team holding the first period.

Kyle Clifford followed up with a goal in the second, giving the Marlies more momentum, or perhaps taking it away from the Senators as their goalie Mads Sogaard makes a huge flub here.

After this point, one goal each was traded between the teams and late in the second period the Marlies were up 3-1 with a lead that felt comfortable, especially with Denis Hildeby in net, but late in the second period came a big momentum shift when Kyle Clifford boarded Tyler Kleven and took a 5-minute major and was ejected. The Senators scored almost immediately on the power play and that comfortable lead became a narrow one.

They held on to that narrow lead through the third and a late penalty by Shaw plus the Senators pulling their goalie left the Marlies with only four to defend against six.

Blandisi was next to feel the momentum swing when he got control of the puck and had a breakaway on the Senators empty net to get back the two goal lead and almost certainly win the game... except he misses the shot, and then he turns over the puck almost immediately and you can guess what happens even without this video.

But momentum goes one way and then comes back the other, and it was Dylan Gambrell who won it all in OT, only 50 seconds into the period, and he didn't even know that his backwards attempt to pass was going to wind up in the net, but it was largely thanks to Sogaard not quickly resetting back into position and completely unsuspecting the puck was coming his way.

Gambrell said he had no idea that his shot actually went in the net at first, saying "I saw Blender coming to jump at me, so then I knew," which by the way is the captured moment in the header photo.

It's a rather cinematic end to the game where the good guys had to overcome adversity and win, but it's been like that the whole year for the Marlies and the Senators. "We play each other 12 times a year, so eventually you're not gonna like each other," said Blandisi about the team that's so often been their nemesis.

Both teams have had big wins and big losses against each other this season, to the point their games have all felt like the plot of a movie that is building to the final act, where you know it's inevitable these two teams would meet at this point in the playoffs and have to settle it all in one final battle. That game is today at 3:00 p.m.

Toronto Marlies