The Manitoba Moose know this feeling all too well.
It felt too much like last year.
“It seems like we’ve seen this before,” Moose captain Jimmy Oligny said after the team’s season ended in Saturday’s last-minute 2-1 loss in Milwaukee. “It’s getting old. I really have no words. It’s just really disappointing.”
The Moose came into Game 4 having two chances to eliminate the Milwaukee Admirals in the teams’ Central Division semifinal series. Instead they suffered two losses and saw their season come to another painful end against a Milwaukee team that knocked the Moose out in 2022 as well. An own-goal in Game 4 led to an eventual 5-3 loss. Then in Game 5, the Moose had seemingly forced overtime with 1:57 to go in regulation only to see a mid-ice collision between Cole Maier and Dean Stewart spring Milwaukee loose for Spencer Stastney’s winning goal.
“We got the one at the end that we wanted, so everything was kind of going to plan,” head coach Mark Morrison said. “We wanted to take it into overtime, and then… it’s one shot.”
Oligny was also in the Moose lineup when they suffered three one-goal losses in a Central Division semifinal series with the Admirals last year. After overtime wins in Games 2 and 3 had positioned the Moose to end this series, he regretted the missed opportunities.
“When we won in OT,” Oligny said, “we had the momentum there. We should have closed [Game 4], and I think that changed a lot of things. It changed the momentum. It went to the other side.”
It may take some time for the sting of another postseason ending at Milwaukee’s hands, but Oligny is hopeful that there will be long-term benefits that emerge from it.
“I hope we just learn from it,” Oligny said. “It’s not every year that you can have a group that goes into the playoffs. It can’t be taken for granted, so hopefully we learn from that, especially the young guys. They’ve got to think about it and make sure to come ready. That’s valuable experience for them as well to be able to play some playoff games.”
Just in case Hershey Bears captain Dylan McIlrath needed a reminder, he has a lot of fans in his dressing room.
The defenseman helped to put away Charlotte in Game 4 of the teams’ Atlantic Division semifinal series last week with an empty-net goal, banking the puck off the right boards deep in his own zone and into the Checkers net. McIlrath, who was mobbed by his teammates after the goal, appeared in 60 regular-season games for the Bears and did not have a goal; the empty-netter was his first tally since May 8, 2022. He has 29 total goals in a combined 615 AHL regular-season and Calder Cup Playoff games.
The plaudits continued afterward from a tight-knit Bears roster.
“To see Big Mac get that goal was great,” Bears forward Beck Malenstyn said. “We were really happy for him. It just makes it really easy when you care about the people around you to go out there and give up yourself for someone else.”
A Calder Cup champion with the Grand Rapids Griffins in 2017 — a team coached by current Hershey bench boss Todd Nelson — McIlrath is trying to get his name on the trophy again with the Bears. In his second season with the Washington Capitals organization, McIlrath was named the 45th captain in Bears history.
“That guy wears his heart on his sleeve,” Malenstyn continued. “He has a ‘C’ on his chest for a reason. Every single night, whether it’s blocking shots, being physical, winning puck battles, winning battles around the net — he’s the heart and soul of our group.
“To see him go the regular season without a goal was unfortunate, because he definitely earned more than that. But to have a big goal to close out a series, I don’t think we could have drawn it up any better for him.”
Bears forward Aliaksei Protas had two goals, including the game-winner, that night, but reserved his excitement for McIlrath.
“We were so happy for him,” Protas said. “He needed this. He was waiting for it for pretty much the whole year, so we were really happy for him when he finally got it. That’s how tight this group is.”
A rugged four-game battle with Abbotsford in the teams’ Pacific Division semifinal series took away any rust that the Calgary Wranglers may have had coming out of the long break that followed the regular season for the team.
The Wranglers had a first-round bye, but quickly found themselves in a physical, hard-nosed series with the Canucks. Calgary required overtime to win Games 1 and 2 at the Scotiabank Saddledome, then faced an animated Canucks crowd in Abbotsford, losing Game 3 before managing to put away the series in Game 4.
Wranglers forward Matthew Phillips had the overtime winner in Game 2 along with three assists in the series. He reasons that it is a good thing that his club did not have a smooth ride against Abbotsford now that they have the Coachella Valley Firebirds next on their playoff schedule.
“We know it’s going to be a challenge,” Phillips said of the heavyweight battle that starts tonight in Calgary. “They got their tough five-game series. We got through a tough series as well. [Abbotsford] was a better team than a fourth seed. They were a well-rounded, tough playoff match-up.”
― Patrick Williams
