Montreal Canadiens' farm team, the Laval Rocket, has booked its place in the AHL playoffs. Here's what you need to know about the Calder Cup playoffs format, which differs from the Stanley Cup playoffs.
While the Montreal Canadiens are still involved in a no-holds-barred fight to make the NHL playoffs, its AHL affiliate, the Laval Rocket, punched its ticket to the spring dance last night with a convincing 5-1 win over the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins. Goaltender Kaapo Kahkonen, who has been elevated to the role of starter with Jacob Fowler’s callup, made 29 saves on the 30 shots he faced. Meanwhile, Sean Farrell was named the first star of the game with a goal and an assist.
The Rocket still has 10 games left in the regular season before the Calder Cup playoffs kick off, but it’s nice to put that question to bed before things become stressful; last year, they only qualified on March 28. This is the fourth time in the last five years that the Place Bell-based outfit qualifies for the playoffs.
The playoffs will feature six of the eight teams from the Atlantic Division, the first five teams from the North and the Central Division, and the top seven teams from the Pacific Division. The first round of the tournament will be a best-of-three format, but the two highest seeds in the Atlantic, the three highest seeds in the North and Central, and the first-place team in the Pacific will receive byes and go straight to the best-of-five Division Semifinal. The Division Finals will also be a best-of-five series, but the Conference Finals and the Final itself will be best-of-seven.
In other words, qualifying for the playoffs is one thing, but Pascal Vincent’s men will now be working towards getting a bye for the first round. While the Rocket is currently first in the North Division, all of its rivals have games in hand, and nothing is set in stone right now. Vincent will be glad to have Adam Engstrom at his disposal. The young blueliner recently came back from injury, and he’s having a great sophomore season with 33 points in 41 games.
One has to wonder if the Laval outfit will be able to rely on all its players going forward, though. Given how little ice time Jayden Struble and Arber Xhekaj generally get, it wouldn’t be overly surprising to see Montreal call up David Reinbacher. It would allow them to see where he is in his development, and it would also mean that Lane Hutson could go back to playing on his strong side.
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