Did the Clock Strike Midnight? It Looks That Way for 5 AHL Teams

Three teams are facing elimination on Thursday night. Five teams are trailing 2-1 in the best-of-five matchups. It looks like time has run out on their seasons as they’ve been outplayed in the Calder Cup Playoffs. 

The teams that boast a series lead presumably will advance. However, a comeback from down 2-1 isn’t anything crazy. It’s happened before and will happen again. The question is which teams are in the best position to mount a comeback? 

If there’s any team where the clock has struck midnight on, it’s the Moose. They stole the first game with a 39-save shutout performance from goaltender Domenic DiVencentiis. The reality was they were held up by goaltending, and the Grand Rapids Griffins are proving they are the better team by outplaying them since. The Griffins won the last two games and have outscored the Moose 6-2. Moreover, rookie goaltender Michal Postava is outdueling DiVencentiis, with a .957 save percentage (SV%) and a 1.01 goals-against average (GAA). 

Like the Moose, the Firebirds are running into a juggernaut, and it shows. They stole Game One but their opponent reined them in since then with particularly stout defense. The Reign have a complete team that can win in multiple ways, and they are proving it in this series and playing like the Calder Cup contenders many of them expected they’d be all along. 

The Bears have been in this position before, at least the veterans have. Last season, they trailed 2-1 to the Lehigh Valley Phantoms and flipped the series with discipline and took advantage of the opportunities given to them. This version of the Bears is a younger team but they have the star power to take over this series, notably, Andrew Cristall, Ilya Protas, and Bogdan Trineyev. 

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The problem the Bears have is that they are facing an elite Penguins team. The Penguins have a great roster from the top down and notably have the edge in the net with Sergei Murashov allowing only seven goals in his three playoff starts. 

The Silver Knights hit a wall in this series. They averaged 3.6 goals per game in the regular season and scored 10 goals in a two-game sweep of the San Jose Barracuda. They were shut out in both of their losses to the Colorado Eagles, a testament to the great goaltending of Trent Miner. 

The Silver Knights are still in a good place to flip this series. Yes, the Eagles are a complete team with no weaknesses, and they’ll have the home ice to close out this series. However, the Silver Knights have the offense and the skill to take over both games. They’ll need Rafael Lavoie, who had 30 goals this season and three goals against the Barracuda, to catch fire as he’s been left off the scoresheet in this series. 

The Bruins finished the season with the best record in the American Hockey League and with 38 more points in the standings than the Thunderbirds. Yet, they are one loss away from an early exit. It shows how far the Thunderbirds have come under new coach Steve Ott and how difficult a matchup they are for the Bruins, facing them 12 times in the regular season and three times in the playoffs. 

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Game Three went into overtime, and the officials missed an offside call that allowed the Thunderbirds to pull off the upset. However, the Bruins let that game get into overtime in the first place and put themselves in a spot to lose a game they should have easily won. 

That said, if there’s one team that can pull off an upset, it’s the Bruins. They were the best team in the AHL for a reason. They have the experience and the skill to flip this series, plus the league’s best goaltender, Michael DiPietro. The Bruins will need more from their top six, as Matthew Poitras has scored a goal and added three assists but Georgii Merkulov, Patrick Brown, and Riley Tufte only have two goals and zero assists in this series.