The Marlies started their Royal Winter Fair road trip in Albany this year with two games on back to back days.

Friday: Marlies 3, Albany 0

Sheldon Keefe is not rotating his lineup as much as we may have expected given the size of his available roster of forwards.  He made one change on defence for this game, sitting Rinat Valiev for William Wrenn. Meanwhile at forward, Rich Clune drew back into the fourth line for his third game this season, leaving Dmytro Timashov in the press box.

Keefe isn't rotating his goalies at all.  Garret Sparks has had one start, was reported to be feeling some sort of injury symptom after, and hasn't dressed since.  PTO goalie Jeff Glass has been dressing as the backup to Antoine Bibeau.

Bibeau has also been very solid in net so far, letting in very few questionable goals, and Friday night in Albany he set a Marlies record for shutouts.

This shutout was his ninth, and helped cement a win that the Marlies achieved in an excellent first period where they outshot the Devils 17-5 and scored two goals.  It was only two because Scott Wedgewood was so good for the Devils, with two big exceptions that were the difference makers in the game.

Colin Greening scored the first goal, not by his usual method of net-front presence, but by slow-motion (compared to the rest of the Marlies) deking up-ice and getting a shot off that somehow dribbled through for a goal.  Wedgewood should have had that one, but it was 1-0 Marlies.

That goal was followed by play after play where the Marlies picked the puck off of Albany sticks and executed perfect transitions for scoring chances.  Wedgewood made a host of good saves.

Tobias Lindberg got the second on a perfectly set up power play that had the Devils immobilized and watching the passing show.

Travis Dermott, with assists on both goals, does not look like he isn't yet 20 years old and just out of junior hockey. He and fellow rookie Andrew Nielsen were tied with five points each after this game.

There were other opportunities: Frederik Gauthier created a scoring chance out of nothing but couldn't convert on the wraparound, and then in the second period Brendan Leipsic had a breakaway that Wedgewood stopped.

Occasional Marlies' chance aside, the second period was all Devils.  They remembered their defensive prowess, and used it to shut down the Marlies in the neutral zone while the Marlies let them have two power plays to try to even up the score.

The Devils were starting to roll and then they did two very stupid things.  Seth Helgeson started a fight with Colin Greening and discovered what a bad idea that was, and just after the halfway point, Blake Coleman tried the same thing on Andrew Campbell.

Coleman wasn't just fighting, he successfully broke up a Marlies scoring rush by taking exception to a clean Viktor Loov hit and dropping the gloves.  If fighting is on the way out, which the new suspension rules are supposed to be in aid of, then why do you get away with using it as a defensive tactic?

It was a foolish set of moves for the Devils, as the interruption in play disrupted a good period for the team, and if it woke anyone up, it was the Marlies.

It didn't mean anything in the end, as this game was decided by the goalies.  Bibeau continued to be stellar in a very tough third period full of Devils' power plays that saw them tip the shots on goal count to 37-31 by the end of the game.

Meanwile, Wedgewood went for an ill-advised trip behind his net, lost the puck, gave up a laugher, and Trevor Moore ended up with his first professional goal on a play that wasn't pretty, but still counts.  The game was all over but for the running down of the clock.

The Marlies don't sit on a lead very well, they don't shut down the other team effectively, and they gave up some golden chances while they were trying to create their own run and gun rushes.  They needed a hot goalie to play out a game like that, and they had one at the right time.  They could use a tighter system to switch to when they are up a bunch, but they roared all the way to Hershey in the playoffs last year without one, and when you run four lines, sometimes you have to run out the game at the expense of the goalie.

Kerby Rychel needs a special mention.  He and Andreas Johnsson are dangerous on the ice all the time, and they've both shot at a high rate and found some posts and had near misses.  Rychel is getting better every game, and he will get goals.

Saturday: Marlies 3, Albany 4 (shootout)

The lineup stayed largely the same for the second game of the back-to-back.  Keefe has NHL veterans at his disposal, but Greening is the only one he seems to want to use.  He was back, as were all of the forward lines from Friday. Wrenn was out for Valiev on defence, and Bibeau was back with Glass backing up.

The Devils started this game on time. They played the body more than the puck, but their disruptive style led to some odd man rushes, and while Bibeau looked like he was flailing for a few, he kept them out most of the time.

The Marlies could not get their power play to succeed in the first period, but they did end up in two fights to slow the pace down to a crawl.

The only Marlies’ goal in the period was a rocket of a shot from Nielsen that went right in, while shortly after, the Devils got a very extended bit of zone time where the Marlies couldn’t get a line change for the defenders.  Reece Scarlett eventually evened the game up.

The shots were 7-6 Devils after one, and the score was 1-1.

The second period was barely underway when Loov took a penalty on a hit.  On the back foot immediately, and with a penalty kill that seems to be 80 percent Bibeau, the Marlies held off some excellent Devils’ chances and the penalty was killed.

The Marlies tried to pick up the play, but they were frustrated by the Devils and had trouble getting anything set up.  They looked indecisive.  Out of the mess, Byron Froese pounced on a pass from Leipsic, and just snapped that puck home.  2-1 Marlies.

Joe Blandisi, taking exception to another of the Marlies’ unpenalized hits, started a fight with Campbell and got a game misconduct out of the deal since it was his second fight of the night.  The crowd was not happy with the officiating, and the whistle seemed to be intermittently out of commission after the referee needed a long time to discuss it all with both coaches. It doesn’t take long to make everyone unhappy that way.

The Marlies found a way to create some sense out of a fairly chaotic game, and led by Froese, Soshnikov and Leipsic, they started to get control back full time.  They pulled even in shots halfway through the game and it see-sawed close to even for the rest of the game.

The Marlies kept up the pressure, finding pucks to turn into scoring chances, and it wasn’t long before a Loov bomb from the point got tipped by Moore for his second goal in as many games. 3-1 Marlies.

The very inconsistent whistle gave the teams some four-on-four that saw Leipsic get the best chance on a breakaway.  He was getting the puck stripped off his stick fairly easily in busier ice, but with fewer bodies around, he is unstoppable.  He had multiple breakaway chances over the two days that were breathtaking.

Soshnikov took a tripping call a few minutes into the third on the weakest looking pretext in the entire game.  John Quennevile scored seconds into the power play, the first power play goal of the game. 3-2 Marlies.

Dermott took a hard hit behind the play and left in the third period.

Campbell took a very hard hit in the corner when he wasn’t playing the puck, and Valiev got in his third or fourth scrap of the weekend.  The referee in this game was running things alone, and that’s often not a recipe for good results.  The result of that event was a power play for the Devlis when Valiev got an instigator to go with the fighting major and a game misconduct.  This was the only instigator penalty of the game, which didn’t sit well with the Marlies.

With two other defenders out, you can bet Campbell stayed in the game.  He didn’t show any signs of an injury, but he wouldn’t.

Bibeau made an ill-advised poke check during the power play as Greening seemed unable to get control of the puck.  Easy goal for the Devils, and the score was 3-3.

At the very end of the third, the Marlies benefited from the questionable refereeing with a penalty call to the Devils that was as improbable as some that had gone against them.  They failed to convert on it, but started overtime 4 on 3.

Overtime, and the power play failed to decide it, which led to some four-on-four time.  The three-on-three that followed was inconclusive, with the Devils getting one good chance.  Justin Holl took a penalty that gave the Devils a four-on-three to run out the clock on.  Bibeau kept the puck out, and the game was decided by a shootout.

Quenneville scored the only goal of the shootout, with Kapanen heading out after him.  Mackenzie Blackwood, who had been a bit hit and miss all game, didn’t miss on that one.  Devils with the win.

The expectation is that Dermott will miss some games, but the Marlies do not play again until the weekend, when they go to St. John’s to test out the IceCaps with their full roster after sending a cut-down squad out for the preseason.

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