Springfield Thunderbirds Causing Calder Cup Playoff Chaos
Next up: the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins. The Springfield Thunderbirds have already made history just seven games into the Calder Cup Playoffs. Now they’ll try to take out another Calder Cup contender.
Calder Cup Playoff Bracket Full AHL On FloHockey Coverage They had already rallied in opening-round play against the Charlotte Checkers to win that series. But their biggest upset came this last Thursday night when they eliminated the Providence Bruins, the AHL’s regular-season champion and a team that had flirted with the league’s best single-season record until the final week of the campaign. Providence (110 points) had finished 38 points ahead of the Thunderbirds (72 points), making it the single-biggest upset in Calder Cup Playoff history.
Long before the postseason arrived, it had already been an eventful six months for the Thunderbirds. Head coach Steve Konowalchuk was fired Jan. 19 and replaced by Steve Ott, an assistant with the parent St.
Louis Blues. They dealt a pair of veteran forwards in the second half, AHL All-Star Matt Luff and captain Matthew Peca. Frankly, little to nothing from this team portended anything like this run so far through the postseason.
They barely qualified for the Calder Cup Playoffs, finishing sixth in the Atlantic Division and needing until the final week of the season to secure that playoff berth. In the second-to-last game of their season, they took a 7-5 thumping from the Hartford Wolf Pack, the AHL’s last-place team. Once the Calder Cup Playoffs started, it went even worse in Game 1 at Charlotte, where the Checkers thrashed them, 8-1.
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