The Toronto Marlies celebrate a goal en route to winning the 2026 Calder Cup (Source: Toronto Marlies)The Toronto Marlies beat the Chicago Wolves 4-3 in Game Five to become the 2026 Calder Cup Champions.
Chicago forward Felix Unger-Sorum put the Wolves on the board with an unorthodox floating shot that found the Marlies net much to the surprise of goalie Artur Akhtyamov to put the Hurricanes AHL affiliates up 1-0 at the 8:09 mark. Things got worse for the Toronto as a giveaway in the Marlies zone led to captain Josiah Slavin also finding the netting at the 17:49 mark to give Chicago the 2-0 lead. With Wolves defenceman Ronan Seeley rendered stick-less, the Marlies found themselves on a semi-power play and Toronto defenceman Matt Benning put in a shot that caught some of the stick of forward Landon Sim into the net 28 seconds before the end of the first frame to cut Chicago's lead in half at 2-1.
Toronto came into the second period with a fiery start: After coming up empty in one power play in the first period, the Marlies drew two penalties in the first 5:09 of the middle frame. In the first man-advantage situation, forward Benoit-Olivier Groux shot from a sharp angle from the right to squeeze the puck past goalie Cayden Primeau and level the game 2-2. Just eight seconds after a 4v4 situation expired, forward Jacob Quillan knocked in the puck off the doorstep of the crease after a well-found feed by forward Easton Cowan to put the Eastern Conference champions up in the contest for the first time at 3-2. Not long after, Toronto would find themselves on their fourth power play and forward Vinni Lettieri would make it a quick one, scoring the Marlies' eventual championship-winning goal three seconds in to double the team's lead at 4-2. For the last 2:41 minutes of the period, the Wolves put up six consecutive shots to end the frame, aided by their second and third power plays that intersected for 1:37 minutes into a two-man advantage. Chicago put up one power play goal courtesy of Unger-Sorum six seconds before second intermission to cut into Toronto's lead at 4-3.
In a low-shooting third period where no team put up double digit shots, the Wolves still outshot the Marlies 9-5. Yet the Western Conference Champions could not find the equalizer to extend the game or the series and try to replicate the success of their NHL affiliates.
Toronto Marlies goalie and AHL All-Star Akhtyamov made 27 saves off 30 shots for a save percentage of 0.900.
The 24-year-old Russian was awarded the Jack A. Butterfield Trophy for the MVP of the Calder Cup Playoffs.