Head coach Dan Bylsma used the words “crushing” and “painful.” Captain Max McCormick said “it stinks” and it’s “heartbreaking.”
For the second consecutive season, the Coachella Valley Firebirds ended their season in the same building as the Calder Cup, but not as the ones holding it up.
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The Hershey Bears showed their championship mettle, winning another close game, with a 5-4 overtime victory over the Firebirds in Game 6 of the Calder Cup Finals on Monday evening. The Bears won the series 4-2 and hoisted the Calder Cup, parading it around their home arena in front of 11,000-plus adoring fans relishing in their back-to-back titles. The Firebirds could only exit the rink with a similar blank stare to 2023.
It looked like the Firebirds might force a Game 7 for the second season in a row with a late goal by Cale Fleury to send the game into overtime, but the Bears are the maestros of the close game, and they did it again. Just 1:06 into overtime, the Bears thwarted a Firebirds’ clearance attempt at the blue line and got the puck quickly to Matt Strome, who put the final nail in the Firebirds’ coffin by zipping the puck past Chris Driedger and touching off a wild celebration.
In the past two Calder Cup Finals, the Firebirds and Bears have played eight one-goal games, Hershey has won seven of them, all four last year and the last three this year.
“Just bummed,” Firebirds captain Max McCormick said after the game. “The hardest part about all of this is just knowing that this group isn’t going to be together again. This was our last chance playing together with this group and it just stinks. We put in the work together all year long and felt like we were in a great spot and just didn’t get it done.”
McCormick hints at what makes this one hurt more than perhaps last year’s Game 7 loss on home ice. After that loss, the rallying cry was “We’ll be back.” After Monday’s loss, much of the Firebirds’ core won’t be back.
Bylsma will be gone after taking the head coaching job with the Seattle Kraken and many of the core players are free agents. This season had sort of a “last-ride” feel to it and the confidence that it would end with a Calder Cup championship only grew as the playoffs wore on. The Firebirds breezed into the Finals with a 10-2 record in the first three series and then won Game 1 at Hershey.
Now five games later, it’s over. Bylsma was emotional after Monday’s climactic loss, speaking slowly but always coming back to the word “painful.”
“I think this group and this team, the way we played all year and battled all year and come together, deserved to win a championship and when you come up short like we did, it’s just, I can’t say it any other way, it’s just painful,” he said after his final game as the Firebirds head coach. “I think we stepped into tonight’s game knowing that it’s never going to be the same again. And that goes for some of the players, and that goes for me and that’s maybe why it hurts so much that we didn’t capitalize on the opportunity.”
At one point Bylsma even turned apologetic to the Firebirds’ players and the fan base that has fallen head over skates for this team since the moment he arrived.
“This is where I say I’m sorry because I didn’t get what we should’ve gotten,” Bylsma said. “What our players put out on the ice should’ve gotten a championship. There’s a lot of pride in the last two years but not getting the end prize is going to leave a mark.”
The Bears are the 10th AHL team to repeat as champions and first team to repeat since they themselves did it in 2009 and 2010. It’s their record 13th Calder Cup overall. Put simply, winning the Calder Cup is what Hershey does.
The overtime goal was a carbon copy of so many of the Bears’ goals throughout the series. Hershey created a turnover and a loose puck near the blue line, won a scrum along the boards and kept it in their offensive zone and the puck squirted away right to a Bears player in position to score.
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It was a common theme in the series.
“We felt like we were outplaying them and creating more opportunities in several of the games this series,” McCormick said. “But they’re an opportunistic team and when they got those chances they seemed to go in and that’s just the way it goes.”
The Firebirds led the series 2-1 after a 6-2 win in Game 3, but the gutsy Bears pulled out a pair of 3-2 wins at Acrisure Arena in Games 4 and 5 to retake control of the series.
The Firebirds had to win Monday’s game and they played with an all-out abandon, but this Hershey team just doesn’t know how to lose a close playoff game. The Firebirds scored first on a goal by Ryan Winterton. Hershey tied the game and then took a 2-1 lead in the final seconds of the first period. It marked the fourth time this Calder Cup Finals that Hershey had scored a goal in the final minute of a period and the sixth time in the final two minutes.
But the Firebirds bounced back. Goals by Marian Studenic and another one by Winterton gave Coachella Valley a 3-2 lead. Undaunted, Hershey tied the game again, and the game went to a climactic third period all even at 3-3. Pierrick Dube scored his third goal of the game to give the Bears a 4-3 lead as hats cascaded down from the Hershey stands after the hat trick. But Fleury got the equalizer late to send the contest into OT.
“We felt like as a group if we kept playing and kept playing it was going to turn our way,” Bylsma said. “Going down by a goal with 11 minutes left, our guys were still all positive. We’re going to get it. And when Cale gets that goal late in the game to tie it up, it just felt inevitable that the next one was going to come as well. And then they get the dagger early in overtime.”
Hershey increased its record Calder Cup haul, having now won 13 of them. Among teams that still exist, the Rochester Americans have the next most at six. The now-defunct Cleveland Barons won nine.
The Firebirds hadn’t lost three games in a row this calendar year before Monday. Their last three-game losing streak was Dec. 17, Dec. 20 and Dec. 23.
Hershey coach Todd Nelson became the seventh head coach to win three or more Calder Cups after also winning one with Grand Rapids in 2017 to go with the last two in Hershey.
The loss was deflating, but it was another successful season for the Firebirds in only their second year of existence. They are back-to-back Pacific Division champions and back-to-back Western Conference champions and became the first team (as did Hershey) to play for the Calder Cup in back-to-back years since 2010.
“These last two years, really it’s been three years for a lot of us if you include Charlotte, you just couldn’t have asked for a better staff to play for and team to be a part of,” McCormick said. “We wanted to get it done for (Bylsma), we wanted to get it done for each other and send him off the right way. It’s a tough pill to swallow.”
The goals
FIRST PERIOD
Firebirds 1-0: Coachella Valley got the early goal it wanted as Cameron Hughes and Shane Wright won the physical battles along the boards before Wright got the puck to Ryan Winterton, who zipped it in from short range less than two minutes into the game.
Tied 1-1: Hershey, showing its championship mettle, answered right back, scoring a power play goal four minutes later when Pierrick Dube scored for Hershey.
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Bears 2-1: In one of the weirdest goals of the series, the Bears scored again in the last minute of a period when a slap shot was re-directed at the top of the circle and fluttered like a knuckleball into the corner of the net.
SECOND PERIOD
Tied 2-2: The second period started in 4-on-4 hockey, which has been a boon for the Firebirds this series. Marian Studenic streaked down the left side and nailed a wrister past Hunter Shepard.
Firebirds 3-2: For the second straight time, Shane Wright and Cameron Hughes did some dirty work and Ryan Winterton cashed in with a hard-nosed goal in front of Shepard.
Tied 3-3: Pierrick Dube with his second of the game as the Firebirds lose a battle on the wall and Alex Limoges feeds Dube for his second of the game.
THIRD PERIOD
Bears 4-3: Pierrick Dube took advantage of another poor clear by the Firebirds with a nifty goal on the doorstep past Driedger.
Tied 4-4: With the season on the line, Cale Fleury came up with some late magic as he took a look and patiently rifled it past Hunter Shepard to tie the game and send it to overtime.
OVERTIME
Bears 5-4: Another botched clearance at the blue line cost the Firebirds as Matt Strome found himself alone in front of Driedger for the game-winner for the Bears and the season-ender for the Firebirds.
Watch party
For the first time a road playoff game was shown at Acrisure Arena as approximately 1,000 fans gathered to watch the game on the big video board.
Fuego was in the building as was game announcer Jason Hernandez. The only thing different looking from a home game is that the west bleachers underneath the scoreboard were tucked back into the wall leaving an open area.
As you might imagine there was a rollercoaster of emotions in the building as the Firebirds had the lead 1-0, then lost it 2-1, then got it back 3-2, then lost it 4-3 then tied it 4-4, and then lost quickly in overtime. There were hushed tones and a palpable disappointment as the fans shuffled out Acrisure Arena for the last time until October.
The scoreboard operator kept the final score at 4-4 on the videoboard even as everyone filed out, too heartbroken to accept the fifth and final goal yielded by the Firebirds this season.
Source: https://t-tees.com
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