The Marlies aren't a great team. They are much younger than the Stars and that is the difference. They had guys like Smith, Abbott, Marshall and Brennan, but the team was really led by Holland, Ashton, D'Amigo and Carrick up front and Percy, MacWilliams and Granberg on the blueline.
The Stars had guys like Faksa, Oleksiak and Jokipaka but they played depth roles and the old guys like Meech, Morin, Dowling, Jeffries, Heddin and Fortunas led the way. Ranford and Ritchie were the only young guys that did anything.
And then of course taking out some of your best players like Leivo for Ross and Maclaren makes no sense.
IMO the most impressive Marlies were Holland, MacWilliams and Carrick. Holland was playing below his level. MacWilliams and Carrick were just solid, and were strong on the pick and moved the puck really well. MOst of the Marlies couldn't hit a pass to save their lives, but those guys did it effectively.
Granberg and Percy looked good at times, but they also made a ton of really shitty mistakes and Granberg was caught out of position a lot. A lot. I think he might have been making Percy's job harder, so its tougher to judge him, but for the way Percy skates and handles the puck he really took a back seat and didn't do very much. He didn't seem to have a very high panic threshold. I had those guys pencilled in for next year, but I'm not so sure after watching this round. I didn't see much of the first two rounds though so maybe they just had a bad round or wore down. But they didn't look very good. MacWilliams should be able to play at the next level though.
Ashton and D'Amigo looked like Ashton and D'Amigo. They are 4th liners.
McKegg was garbage.
MacIntyre is a good AHL goalie, but he is very sloppy, and flops around a lot. He's not an NHLer.