Patrick Williams, TheAHL.com Features Writer
The AHL’s 91st season starts tonight with an eight-game schedule and plenty of change.
An anniversary, a Calder Cup defense, a new-old AHL home, roster changes, prospects, and more prospects all are questions and storylines to explore this season.
Opening weekend is here as the long journey to the Calder Cup begins anew. Here are some of those questions and storylines ahead.
Can the Calder Cup stay in Canada for another year?
The Toronto Marlies’ bid toward that goal starts tonight when they visit the Rochester Americans. Their Calder Cup championship banner will go to the Coca-Cola Coliseum rafters Saturday afternoon before their home opener.
After the Abbotsford Canucks’ 2025 championship, the Marlies kept the trophy in Canada when they finished off the Chicago Wolves in five games in last June’s Calder Cup Finals. Steve Sullivan is taking over as head coach for John Gruden, who earned a promotion to the Toronto Maple Leafs.
The Marlies are returning a significant number of players from their championship roster, including goaltender Artur Akhtyamov. The 24-year-old took control of the Toronto crease early in the postseason and went on to earn the Jack A. Butterfield Trophy as the most valuable player of the Calder Cup Playoffs. Also back is forward Vinni Lettieri after his 26 points (11 goals, 15 assists) topped all postseason scorers. Captain Logan Shaw signed a one-year contract extension Thursday that will keep him with the Marlies through at least the 2027-28 campaign.
There is youth, too. Defenseman Ben Danford, taken 31st overall in 2024, and forward Landon Sim are officially rookies, but they joined the Marlies for last spring’s championship run and have their names inscribed on the Calder Cup.
Wolves still hungry
Falling just three wins short of winning the Calder Cup in 2025-26, Chicago will return one of the league’s best rosters.
With top Carolina prospects Bradly Nadeau, Justin Robidas and Felix Unger Sörum all back, the Wolves will possess ample talent that has also been through the demands of a Calder Cup Playoff run. Take that scoring, surround it with a deep base of forwards, a highly experienced blue line, and stalwart Cayden Primeau in net, and the Wolves look more than capable of making a run at the Calder Cup again. Their first test comes Saturday afternoon at Manitoba.
Youth movement
The AHL is about to get younger and add even more top-end talent.
A new agreement between the National Hockey League and the Canadian Hockey League has made 19-year-old first-round draft picks eligible to be assigned to the AHL instead of returning to junior. The thinking is simple: get these top prospects the pro experience that they need, and to do it sooner.
That change means that the NHL’s 2025 first-round class is well-represented on AHL opening rosters. The list includes Tucson’s Caleb Desnoyers (fourth overall), Milwaukee’s Brady Martin (fifth), Rochester’s Radim Mrtka (ninth), Abbotsford’s Braeden Cootes (15th), Springfield’s Justin Carbonneau (19th), Wilkes-Barre/Scranton’s Bill Zonnon (22nd), Hershey’s Lynden Lakovic (27th) and Ontario’s Henry Brzustewicz (31st).
Here comes the 2024 crop, too
The bulk of the NHL’s 2024 draft class is turning pro as well.
Desnoyers won’t be the only top-10 pick on the Tucson roster. Tij Iginla, the son of Hockey Hall of Fame member Jarome Iginla, went sixth overall two years ago to the Utah Mammoth. He is fresh off a 41-goal season with the Western Hockey League’s Kelowna Rockets.
The New Jersey Devils chose defenseman Anton Silaev 10th overall in 2024, and he will develop with the Utica Comets to start. The 20-year-old already played three seasons in the Kontinental Hockey League. Taken 13th by the Philadelphia Flyers, forward Jett Luchanko is with the Lehigh Valley Phantoms. Terik Parascak (17th – Hershey), Sacha Boisvert (18th – Rockford), Cole Eiserman (20th – Hamilton), Cole Beaudoin (24th – Hartford), Liam Greentree (26th – Hartford), Marek Vanacker (27th – Rockford), Emil Hemming (29th – Texas), and Sam O’Reilly (32nd – Syracuse) complete an impressive collection of forwards. And Stian Solberg (23rd), who played 71 games last season on the San Diego blue line, is back for more time with the Gulls.
Roster moves
The AHL’s new collective bargaining agreement with the PHPA made an adjustment to the league’s development rule. Twelve of the 18 skaters in a team’s game lineup must have played 260 or fewer professional games at the NHL, AHL, and elite European league levels. A team may dress six players (age 25 or older by July 1st) beyond the 260-game threshold. Goaltenders do not count toward the limit.
Back in Steeltown
The AHL is back in Hamilton, Ont., for the first time since 2015. The Hammers take over as the new AHL affiliate of the New York Islanders and will play at the fully renovated TD Coliseum. They will test their provincial rivals early. Friday’s visit to Belleville is followed by Toronto’s home opener Saturday. The Hammers debut at home on Friday, Oct. 9 against the Marlies.
Changes Bruin in Providence
A dramatically revamped roster will greet Providence Bruins fans tonight for the team’s season opener against Utica.
Providence’s 54-16-2-0 record topped the AHL last season, but the team fell to the Springfield Thunderbirds in the division semifinals. Then the changes hit. MVP goaltender Michael DiPietro and All-Star defenseman Frederic Brunet earned jobs with the Boston Bruins. Ryan Mougenel, the Louis A. R. Pieri Memorial Award winner as the AHL’s most outstanding head coach last season, is with the Vancouver Canucks as an assistant coach in his first NHL role. Captain Patrick Brown moved on as did top forwards Matěj Blümel, Fabian Lysell, and Georgii Merkulov.
Trent Whitfield is taking over for Mougenel. Among the other changes are incoming forwards Wyatt Bongiovanni, Brendan Gaunce, Brian Halonen, Cross Hanas, and Ivan Ivan, along with defensemen Tobie Bisson, Max Guenette, Jordan Harris and Henri Jokiharju.
Providence has been a perennial contender for years. Whitfield captained the P-Bruins as a player and went on to work 10 seasons as an assistant coach in Providence. He knows the team’s high standards as well as anyone.
Changing benches
Sullivan and Whitfield are not the only new head coaches this season.
Jussi Ahokas (Colorado), Stu Bickel (Iowa), Nick Bootland (Cleveland), Daniel Jacob (Laval), Jay Leach (Hartford), Dave Manson (San Diego), Jay McKee (Hamilton), Ryan Papaioannou (Abbotsford) and Joel Ward (Henderson Silver Knights) all have new head-coaching posts.
Along with Gruden and Mougenel moving up as assistants, Ryan Craig (Vegas) and Manny Malhotra (Vancouver) are first-time NHL head coaches. Among 2025-26 AHL head coaches, Greg Cronin (St. Louis), Mark Letestu (Vegas), Matt McIlvane (Boston), Rocky Thompson (N.Y. Islanders), Pascal Vincent (Seattle) and Trent Vogelhuber (Columbus Blue Jackets) are now NHL assistant coaches.
Looking to the past
November 7 will be a busy day and night around the AHL. A historic one, too.
All 32 teams will play that day to commemorate the league’s 90th anniversary. It was on Nov. 7, 1936, that the league – then known as the International-American Hockey League – played its first games.
And to the future
The AHL All-Star Classic always features some of the best young talent in the league. Fifteen participants from last season’s event hosted by Rockford have graduated to NHL jobs. Cleveland will host the 2027 AHL All-Star Classic presented by Rectifi on Feb. 7-8.
On the American Hockey League beat for more than two decades, TheAHL.com features writer Patrick Williams also currently covers the league for NHL.com and FloSports and is a regular contributor on SiriusXM NHL Network Radio. He was the recipient of the AHL’s James H. Ellery Memorial Award for his outstanding coverage of the league in 2015-16.
