Gardiner stops Marlies collapse with overtime goal in win over Barons

OKLAHOMA CITY - Jake Gardiner scored in overtime as the Toronto Marlies defeated the Oklahoma City Barons 6-5 in American Hockey League action Tuesday afternoon.

Will Acton, Nicolas Deschamps, Kenny Ryan, Greg Scott and Mike Zigomanis also scored for Toronto (6-4-1), which had a 4-0 lead after the first period before the Barons mounted a furious comeback. Mike Kostka had three assists.

Ryan Nugent-Hopkins had two goals and an assist for Oklahoma City (6-5-1), while Jordan Eberle added a four assists. Teemu Hartikainen, Taylor Hall and Mark Arcobello also scored, and league-leading scorer Justin Schultz added two assists.

Jussi Rynnas made 31 saves for Toronto.

Olivier Roy surrendered three goals on 10 shots before being replaced in goal by Yann Danis, who stopped 14-of-17 shots in relief.

It looked like it would be a blowout after a first dominated by the Marlies. Acton scored just 36 seconds into the game, then Deschamps, Ryan and Scott scored over a span of 87 seconds late in the period to put the shellshocked Barons into a hole.

Hall finally got Oklahoma City on the board with a power-play goal at 16:19 of the second.

Arcobello scored the Barons' second straight goal with the man advantage at 4:53 of the third to pull his team to within two.

Zigomanis scored on a power play at 7:10 to restore Toronto's three-goal lead before the Barons went on a scoring tear of their own.

Nugent-Hopkins and Hartikainen scored power-play goals 73 seconds apart late in the third before Nugent-Hopkins scored his second of the game with 22 seconds remaining in regulation to send the game to overtime.

Gardiner scored at 4:32 of overtime to salvage the win for the Marlies.

With the two assists Schultz, a rookie defenceman, now has 18 points in 13 games to top the league's scoring race. Eberle is second with 16.

Note to readers: This is a corrected story. Due to an official scoring change Hartikainen scored instead of Eberle and Nugent-Hopkins now has two goals and an assist.