John Gruden on the Marlies' fourth line scoring the winner in Game 1 of the ECF: "They're the heartbeat of our team at times"

The team’s fourth line started the game and delivered a major impact in the third period, providing energy on and off the ice and creating repeated momentum-changing moments. The line’s effectiveness came from hunting the puck, moving it quickly, getting to the front of the net, and simplifying play while doing heavy driving work. A power-play goal in the second period resulted from identifying exploitable areas and executing them against a strong penalty kill. The penalty kill also performed well, including generating breakaways. The team opened a 1-0 series lead on the road while maintaining a bend-don’t-break approach against a dangerous transition game.

"I thought Mark Giordano did a really good job of finding a couple of things we could exploit and executing it. They did exactly that. The [Penguins] have a good PK and have been good in the postseason. At the end of the day, the power plays are going to be few and far between. We have to make them pay for those huge momentum swings. I thought our PK was outstanding as well. We got a couple of breakaways."

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