Patrick Williams, TheAHL.com Features Writer
Next stop: The Calder Cup Finals.
The Charlotte Checkers swept both the back-to-back Calder Cup champion Hershey Bears and the regular-season champion Laval Rocket to earn the Eastern Conference championship.
Charlotte won its eighth straight game on Tuesday night, ending Laval’s season with a come-from-behind 3-2 win at Bojangles Coliseum on Jesse Puljujärvi’s goal with 2:04 to go in regulation.
“It was unreal,” Puljujärvi said. “I haven’t felt that many times. It was really fun.”
There have been a lot of fun times this season for the Checkers, who await the winner of the Western Conference Finals between the Abbotsford Canucks and Texas Stars. During some down time, maybe they can catch some of the action from the Stanley Cup Final between their parent Florida Panthers and Edmonton Oilers. With Florida and Charlotte both through to their respective finals, they are the first organization since 2008 to do so. The last time that an organization claimed the Stanley Cup and Calder Cup in the same season was 1995 when the New Jersey Devils and Albany River Rats accomplished that feat.
This marks the first time that a Panthers affiliate has reached the Calder Cup Finals. Florida went through a stretch of failing to qualify for the Stanley Cup Playoffs in 16 of 18 seasons, and their AHL affiliates historically have not fared much better. But since partnering with the Checkers, a relationship that first hit the ice in the fall of 2021 after Charlotte opted out of the COVID-abbreviated 2020-21 season, the Checkers have reached the postseason four times and the Panthers are in their third straight Stanley Cup Final.
Florida has given the Checkers and senior vice president of hockey operations Derek Wilkinson the latitude to build a team built to win. Head coach Geordie Kinnear, the Panthers’ AHL head coach since 2016, has given the operation stability.
Florida hasn’t owned many high selections in recent NHL drafts – their only first-rounder of the last four years is Mackie Samoskevich, who spent this entire season with the Panthers after scoring 22 goals as a rookie with Charlotte in 2023-24 – but their young prospects like Marek Alscher, Sandis Vilmanis, Justin Sourdif and Mike Benning have been surrounded by an impressive cast of teammates. In many ways, the Checkers are a group on their second (or more) career chance.
Goaltender Kaapo Kähkönen, waived twice and traded once this season, has been dominant this postseason, going 10-2 with a 1.73 GAA and a .927 save percentage. Puljujärvi a former fourth-overall draft pick, is trying to rebuild his career following bilateral hip surgery two years ago; he started on a tryout with Charlotte before signing a two-year NHL contract with Florida in March. Will Lockwood moved through the Vancouver and New York Rangers organizations before coming to Florida last season. John Leonard, whose 36 goals tied for second in the AHL this season, is on an AHL deal after playing with San Jose, Nashville and Arizona. MacKenzie Entwistle and Rasmus Asplund have each played nearly 200 games in the NHL. Tobias Bjornfot, a sixth-year pro but still just 24 years old, has made himself a candidate for future NHL work. C.J. Smith returned from a season and a half in Europe and has provided needed depth at forward. Nine-year pro Kyle Criscuolo is on his seventh AHL team with Charlotte.
On and on those stories go for the Checkers, who have taken much of the Florida blueprint of relentless, puck-hungry pursuit and been able to make it a nightly staple in their team game despite the schedule’s demands and ever-accumulating games as the calendar charges into June.
A stellar penalty kill has been another energy source. The Checkers, who led the AHL in penalty killing efficiency (86.6 percent) and shorthanded goals (16) in the regular season, have scored six times while down a man in 12 playoff games and have allowed only four power-play goals.
“We put in so much work all year,” Entwistle said after Tuesday’s clinching win over Laval. Good teams find a way to get it done, and that’s what we did. Our goaltending was great all series, our crowd was great, and we kind of fed off their momentum. It was special.”
On the American Hockey League beat for 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 2016.
