AHL Morning Skate: May 11, 2024

GAME NOTES
Hershey holds a 2-1 lead in the best-of-five series, but Lehigh Valley carries the momentum into Game 4 at PPL Center tonight after Wednesday’s 2-0 blanking of the defending Calder Cup champions... Cal Petersen (3-2, 2.21, .904) made 22 saves for his first career playoff shutout, and the first by a Phantoms goaltender in the postseason in more than 16 years – since Apr. 29, 2008, when Philadelphia’s Scott Munroe posted a Game 7 shutout of the Albany River Rats... Emil Andrae (2-1-3) and Olle Lycksell (1-3-4) provided the offense in Game 4 with a pair of early power-play goals, giving Lehigh Valley a 2-0 lead just 7:28 into the contest... Before Wednesday, the Phantoms had been 4-for-50 (8.0 percent) on the power play against the Bears this season... Cooper Marody (0-4-4) assisted on both Game 4 tallies... Hunter Shepard (2-1, 1.36, .952) stopped 20 of 22 shots for the Bears, his 10th consecutive start (and 16th of 17) allowing two goals or fewer... In his five regulation losses this season, Shepard has allowed a total of 10 goals while the Bears have scored a combined three... The Phantoms have held Hershey to 22.0 shots on goal per game in the series; the Bears ranked last in the AHL during the regular season at 26.8 shots per game... Excluding shootouts, Hershey has not lost back-to-back games since Games 1 and 2 of the 2023 Calder Cup Finals against Coachella Valley; the Bears are 13-0-0-1 following a regulation loss in 2023-24... Hershey has not scored a goal in its last 175:17 of play at PPL Center; the Bears dropped a 1-0 decision to the Phantoms in a shootout on Mar. 3, and were held scoreless over the final two-plus periods of a 4-1 loss on Feb. 2... The Hartford Wolf Pack await the winner of this series after eliminating Providence last night.

With the Columbus Blue Jackets in transition and still in the process of hiring a general manager for next season, there is significant emphasis on the Cleveland Monsters making a long Calder Cup Playoff run. Jobs in Columbus could be open next season, and the Cleveland roster is well aware.

Goaltender Jet Greaves is one of those players. Selected for the AHL All-Star Classic this season, the 23-year-old undrafted Greaves also played nine games with the Blue Jackets and posted a .908 save percentage. Coupled with a 30-12-4 record to go with a 2.93 goals-against average and .910 save percentage in the regular season for the Monsters, he now has a chance to bolster his standing in the organization further with a strong postseason.

The third-year pro looks around the Cleveland dressing room and sees similar growth from his young teammates.

“It’s so cool for me to see so many of the guys that I came in with playing such big roles for this team,” Greaves told reporters last night after the Monsters eliminated Belleville in Game 4 of the teams’ North Division semifinal series. “We’ve got a really close-knit group, and I think that helps us just to be on the same page and get better and better as the year goes on. I think we’re seeing that right now, and we want to keep that going.”

After losing the first two games of their best-of-five Central Division semifinal series in Cedar Park last week, the Milwaukee Admirals faced the possibility of an early postseason exit.

But they took solace in coming back home to UW-Milwaukee Panther Arena, where they banged out a 5-3 win in Game 3 on Wednesday and then kept it going last night. Rookie forward Zach L’Heureux supplied a pair of first-period goals 47 seconds apart, and the Admirals went on to a 4-1 victory to force a deciding Game 5 with Texas on Sunday.

And it’s at home, an advantage that the Admirals earned by capturing the division title. They had 5,300 fans in the building for Game 4, and the Admirals heard them.

“They’re loud,” L'Heureux told reporters. “They’re engaged. For us players, you can’t ask for much better than that.”

Now the Admirals have an opportunity to give those fans even more to be loud about.

“It’s never easy going down two and having to win three in a row,” L’Heureux continued, “but when you’re coming back at home in front of your fans, there’s never a doubt, there’s never a thought of, ‘Can we do this?’ We knew the whole time that it was possible. We’d just have to go out there and play our game and never have a doubt.

“We’re motivated, we’re still hungry, and it’s far from over.”

Dan Bylsma’s hockey journey has taken him all over North America as a player and coach.

One of those places is California, where the Coachella Valley Firebirds head coach has forged strong ties as part of his three-plus decades in the pro game. He played 429 NHL games, all of them coming with the Los Angeles Kings and Anaheim Ducks. He also played parts of two seasons with Long Beach in the former International Hockey League.

After eliminating Calgary last night, Bylsma’s Firebirds are set to face Ontario in an all-California battle in the Pacific Division Finals. For a Coachella Valley team in only its second season, it will be an opportunity to take the burgeoning rivalry with the Reign to a new level. It will also be the team’s first playoff series against an in-state opponent. The Firebirds will host Game 1 of the best-of-five series next Wednesday as the Reign make the 90-minute trek to Acrisure Arena.

“Rivalries don’t usually start until you play the team in the playoffs, so I guess this one can start now,” Bylsma told reporters last night. “Playoff hockey builds rivalries, and there’s a big growth of hockey (in Southern California) because of that rivalry between the Ducks and the Kings. Let’s hope this one does the same thing.”

After a trip to the conference finals last year, the end came too abruptly in the eyes of the Rochester Americans with a 5-2 loss at home to Syracuse last night.

“I [told] them how much I love them,” Amerks head coach Seth Appert said of his postgame talk to his players, “how grateful I am to have the privilege to coach them. Unreal group. I had to stop practice (only) two times all year to yell at them. They practiced hard. They care about each other. They treat each other the right way. They treat our support staff right.

“I’ve coached 29 years, and you’d love that every year, but it’s not the way it works. This group had it, and that’s why we became the team we became in the second half of the season. That’s why this stings even more. I’d love to win a Calder Cup, but probably more important I’d love to just get to coach them in practice this coming week.”

Amerks captain Michael Mersch concluded his fourth season with the club by bringing the team to within a goal midway through the second period before the Crunch pulled away. The end to the season hit him afterward.

“These games, these playoffs, they’re like gold, especially as you get older,” said Mersch, who won a Calder Cup as a rookie in 2015. “You don’t get these types of games – sold-out, buzz around the team and support from the city, a special group that cares about each other and cares about playing for the Amerks – all that stuff just doesn’t happen every year.

“This right now doesn’t feel real. It just happens so quick.”

― with files from Patrick Williams

In Friday’s Stanley Cup Playoff action, 2020 AHL All-Star Evan Bouchard scored at 5:38 of overtime, giving Edmonton a 4-3 win over Vancouver in Game 2 of their series... Mattias Ekholm added a goal, and Leon Draisaitl notched a goal and three assists... Evan Rodrigues scored twice for Florida in a 6-2 win over Boston in Game 3... Two-time AHL All-Star Brandon Montour added a goal and an assist and 2018-19 AHL scoring champion Carter Verhaeghe scored what proved to be the game-winning goal... 2020-21 Atlantic Division AHL All-Star Jakub Lauko scored his first career Stanley Cup Playoff goal for the Bruins.

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