TORONTO - The Toronto Marlies scored four times in the first period and never looked back as they thumped the Hamilton Bulldogs 6-1 on Saturday in American Hockey League action.
Keith Aucoin scored twice and added an assist as the Marlies (8-5-1) got revenge on their local rivals less than 24 hours after losing 6-3 in Hamilton. The local rivalry continues to rage as the teams combined for 121 penalty minutes and Zach Stortini was given a game misconduct in the second period.
Leo Komarov deflected a shot from the point for his sixth goal of the season to open the scoring on the power play at 4:15 of the first. Mark Fraser and Nicolas Deschamps then scored 13 seconds apart and Aucoin's first of the night concluded the first period scoring as the game was over after 20 minutes.
Aaron Palushaj scored at 2:08 in the third to get Hamilton's (5-6-2) lone goal but Mike Kostka restored the five-goal advantage less than a minute later.
While Aucoin added his second of the night with just over five minutes remaining in the second, the latter two periods were overshadowed by a number of altercations between the two teams culminating with Stortini's game-misconduct for jumping Marlies' forward Kenny Ryan behind the Toronto goal with two minutes remaining.
Stortini took exception to a hit dished out by Ryan, skated over to jump him and unloaded a number of punches. Stortini was also given two minutes for roughing, five for fighting and a ten-minute misconduct.
