AHL Morning Skate: April 18, 2023

GAME NOTES
The Charlotte Checkers and Lehigh Valley Phantoms open the 2023 Calder Cup Playoffs tonight at Bojangles’ Coliseum... The Checkers are making their fifth consecutive postseason appearance; they fell to Springfield in the division finals in 2022... The Phantoms are in the playoffs for the first time since 2018, when their run to the Eastern Conference Finals included a 4-1 series victory over Charlotte... The Checkers were led in scoring this season by Riley Nash (24-35-59), whose postseason experience includes four games in the 2022 Stanley Cup Final with Tampa Bay... Charlotte’s Lucas Carlsson (20-34-54), a Second Team AHL All-Star this season, tied for the league lead in goals by a defenseman... Tyson Foerster (20-28-48) led the Phantoms in scoring, including eight points in eight games against the Checkers... Rookie Elliot Desnoyers (23-21-44) paced Lehigh Valley with 23 goals... Former Phantom Alex Lyon, who won the Calder Cup with Chicago last season, remains on recall to Florida after going 13-9-1 (2.43, .910) with Charlotte during the regular season.

Charlotte is preparing to be without Zac Dalpe tonight for Game 1 of a first-round best-of-three series with Lehigh Valley.

The Florida Panthers recalled the Checkers captain yesterday before opening their Stanley Cup Playoff series with Boston. Dalpe did not play in the 3-1 Panthers loss.

Dalpe, 33, played 14 games for Florida this season, his highest NHL total since the 2014-15 campaign. He also managed to finish second on the Charlotte roster with 21 goals in 47 games,

Game 1 of their first-round Stanley Cup Playoff series against Boston. At 33 years old, Dalpe played 14 NHL games this season, his highest total since the 2014-15 campaign. He still managed to finish second on the Charlotte roster with 21 goals in 47 games.

Charlotte also remains without goaltender Alex Lyon. The 2022 Calder Cup champion parlayed his strong late-season run with Florida into a Game 1 start for the Panthers. He stopped 26 shots in the Game 1 loss against the NHL’s President’s Trophy winners.

Milwaukee lost six of its last eight games to finish the regular season, but help has arrived from Nashville.

The Admirals received forwards Luke Evangelista, Mark Jankowski, Michael McCarron, Zach Sanford, Kiefer Sherwood and Phil Tomasino along with defenseman Spencer Stastney after the Predators’ season ended. They join forward Egor Afanasyev, who had already returned from Nashville last week and got a two-game tune-up with the Admirals to close out the regular season.

Those eight players combined for 80 goals with Milwaukee this season, more than one-third of the Admirals’ sixth-ranked offense.

In a discussion with TheAHL.com last month, Admirals head coach Karl Taylor had acknowledged the challenge of re-integrating so many top players back into his lineup. However, the Admirals clinched second place in the Central Division and earned a bye into the division semifinals, giving them more than week to prepare before facing Manitoba beginning Apr. 28.

Evangelista showed well both in Nashville and Milwaukee as a 21-year-old rookie, collecting 15 points in 24 NHL games along with 41 points in 49 AHL contests and earning a trip to the AHL All-Star Classic. Tomasino, another top prospect in the Nashville system, delivered 32 points in 38 games with the Admirals while also appearing in 31 games for Nashville. Sherwood is an established AHL producer who notched 22 goals in only 42 contests with the Milwaukee, and Jankowski chipped in five goals and 10 points during a nine-game stint with Milwaukee while also playing 50 games with Nashville.

The returnees will join a group of late-season forward additions in Anthony Angello, Isaac Ratcliffe and Austin Rueschhoff, who also arrived in separate March trades and played key roles down the stretch for Milwaukee. Forward Joakim Kemell, a Nashville first-round pick in the 2022 NHL Draft, arrived in mid-March from Finland and provided 13 points in 14 games as an 18-year-old.

The Abbotsford Canucks have a significant addition as well going into Game 1 of their first-round series with Bakersfield on Wednesday.

Defenseman Christian Wolanin is back with the club following a two-month stint with the parent Vancouver Canucks. A First Team AHL All-Star, Wolanin put up 49 assists and 55 points in 49 games for Abbotsford, leading all AHL defensemen in scoring despite being in the NHL for a third of the season.

Wolanin’s return could be most felt on the power play, particularly against a Condors penalty kill that ranked sixth in the AHL at 82.7 percent. Abbotsford was ranked 13th in the AHL at an even 20.0 percent (43-for-215) when Wolanin was recalled; while he was in Vancouver, Abbotsford went 9-for-73 (12.3 percent) on the power play.

Wolanin played 16 games with Vancouver and had three assists. He signed a two-year contract extension with the club last month.

― Patrick Williams

ALUMNI WATCH
The 2023 Stanley Cup Playoffs got underway last night with four series openers... 2022 Calder Cup champion Stefan Noesen scored the winning goal and 2019 Calder Cup champion Martin Necas had a pair of assists as Carolina defeated the New York Islanders, 2-1... Providence alumni David Pastrnak, Brad Marchand and Jake DeBrusk scored and 2017 Calder Cup Playoffs MVP Tyler Bertuzzi notched two assists for Boston in a 3-1 win over Florida; 2022 Calder Cup champion Alex Lyon made 26 saves for the Panthers... Ryan Hartman scored at 12:20 of the second overtime to lift Minnesota over Dallas, 3-2... 2015 Calder Cup champion Adrian Kempe scored twice and 2016 Calder Cup champion Joonas Korpisalo stopped 37 shots to backstop Los Angeles to a 4-3 overtime win over Edmonton.

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