Patrick Williams, TheAHL.com Features Writer
Here is what you need to know as the American Hockey League gets set for opening night.
GOING FOR THREE
The Hershey Bears have a chance to make even more history this season.
Coming off back-to-back championships, the Bears can become the first team to win the Calder Cup three consecutive times since the Springfield Indians did so in 1960, 1961 and 1962. It’s been 109 days since Matt Strome’s overtime winner against Coachella Valley in Game 6 of the Finals at Giant Center delivered Hershey its 13th title.
Logan Day, Ethen Frank, Vincent Iorio, Jake Massie, Aaron Ness, Hunter Shepard, Riley Sutter and Mike Vecchione were all part of the Bears’ back-to-back titles, and all are on Hershey’s roster to begin the 2024-25 season. Dylan McIlrath, who captained the Bears to both championships, won a job with the Washington Capitals out of training camp. Meanwhile Mike Sgarbossa, who was injured for much of the 2023 postseason and in Washington for the 2024 run, is back with the Bears.
Head coach Todd Nelson, who has won five Calder Cups in his career as a player (1994), an assistant coach (2008) and head coach (2017, 2023, 2024), will again lead the Bears, who are the first team to be in position for a championship three-peat since 2010-11, when Hershey again was coming off a pair of Calder Cup victories. Rochester (1965, 1966), Nova Scotia (1976, 1977), Maine (1978, 1979) and Springfield (1990, 1991) have also fallen short of a third straight Cup since the Indians’ run in the early 1960’s.
The Bears begin their 87th AHL season Saturday night at home against the Cleveland Monsters, the team that they ousted in a seven-game battle in the Eastern Conference Finals in June. That game will be the Live on Social Saturday AHL Game of the Week, streaming free on FloHockey’s Facebook, X and YouTube accounts.
WOLVES, HURRICANES TOGETHER AGAIN
After one season apart, the Carolina Hurricanes and Chicago Wolves are back together. The teams announced a new three-year affiliation this past May, meaning that all 32 NHL teams again have a sole AHL affiliate.
Last season the Wolves were unaffiliated, the first AHL team to do so since the 1994-95 Worcester IceCats, while the Hurricanes scattered their top prospects across several AHL teams. In their first stint together (2020-23), the Wolves went 106-54-11-10 (.644) – the best three-year record in the league over that span – and won the Calder Cup in 2022. Seth Jarvis, Jalen Chatfield, Pyotr Kochetkov and Stefan Noesen were among the players who spent time in Chicago before graduating to full-time NHL work.
Cam Abbott steps behind the Chicago bench as head coach after a successful tenure with Rögle BK of the Swedish Hockey League. In 2021-22, his club won the Champions Hockey League, and he was named SHL coach of the year.
COACHING CHANGES
Including the Wolves, eight teams will have a new head coach this season.
Two familiar names are back behind AHL benches, as Pascal Vincent is the new head coach in Laval while Derek Laxdal takes over Coachella Valley. Vincent, who guided the Columbus Blue Jackets last season, won the Louis A.R. Pieri Memorial Award as the AHL’s most outstanding head coach in 2017-18 with Manitoba. Laxdal, a Calder Cup champion as a player who led Texas to the Finals in 2018, takes over for Dan Bylsma after he and assistant coach Jessica Campbell earned promotions to the Seattle Kraken. Laxdal also went to the Ontario Hockey League finals last season with Oshawa.
Abbott, Mike Leone (Rochester), Steve Konowalchuk (Springfield), Kirk MacDonald (Wilkes-Barre/Scranton), Manny Malhotra (Abbotsford) and Grant Potulny (Hartford) are all first-time AHL head coaches. Since the end of the 2022-23 season, 17 teams have had at least one head-coaching change.
The longest-tenured AHL head coach with the same organization is Charlotte’s Geordie Kinnear, who is back for his eighth season leading the AHL prospects of the defending Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers.
NHL PROMOTIONS
Year after year the AHL prepares and graduates talent to the NHL, and this season is no different.
In all, 594 AHL graduates made NHL opening-night rosters, good for than 83 percent of the player base. Forward Logan Stankoven, last season’s AHL rookie of the year with the Texas Stars, has moved up to the Dallas Stars. Mavrik Bourque, the reigning AHL MVP and scoring champion, is expected to join him in the Dallas lineup when he returns from injury.
Stankoven, Brandt Clarke (Los Angeles), Simon Edvinsson (Detroit), Jiri Kulich (Buffalo) and Shane Wright (Seattle) were all selected to the 2023-24 AHL Top Prospects Team; all made NHL rosters out of training camp.
Hendrix Lapierre, the most valuable player of the Calder Cup Playoffs, is with Washington. After scoring a league-leading 44 goals with Springfield, Adam Gaudette secured a job with the Ottawa Senators. Defensemen Jake Christiansen, a Second Team AHL All-Star with Cleveland, and David Jiricek made the cut with Columbus.
Already this season, eight AHL players have made their NHL debuts including 2024 AHL All-Stars Joel Blomqvist (Pittsburgh) and Dennis Hildeby (Toronto); both won their first NHL starts on Thursday night.
NEW FACES
The 2022 NHL Draft’s first-round class is heavily represented as the AHL season opens.
Jiricek, Wright, and Simon Nemec (New Jersey) are already 2022 first-rounders who have moved up to the NHL.
From that 2022 class, Rockford has defenseman Kevin Korchinski, who went seventh overall to the Chicago Blackhawks and spent last season in the NHL. Forward Frank Nazar, the 13th selection, is with the IceHogs after turning pro out of the University of Michigan. From the eighth spot, forward Marco Kasper returns to Grand Rapids. Ninth pick Matthew Savoie is with Bakersfield after being part of a Buffalo-Edmonton swap.
Cleveland will have another top blueliner in Denton Mateychuk, who impressed in a brief playoff stint last June after being named the Western Hockey League’s top defenseman. Columbus took him 12th overall two years ago. In Abbotsford there is the 15th pick, forward Jonathan Lekkerimäki, who was the SHL’s rookie of the year last season. Rochester will feature forward Noah Östlund from the 16th spot. Texas defenseman Lian Bichsel went 18th.
Milwaukee has returnees Joakim Kemell (17th) and Reid Schaefer (32nd) while Ivan Miroshnichenko already has a championship ring from last season with Hershey. San Diego’s Nathan Gaucher returns for his second pro season as does 2023-24 AHL All-Rookie forward Brad Lambert (Manitoba). Among the rookies, defensemen Maveric Lamoureux (Tucson), Owen Pickering (Wilkes-Barre/Scranton) along with forwards Filip Mešár (Laval) and Filip Bystedt round out the 2022 first-round class.
PLAYER RETIREMENTS
A number of long-time AHL names have hung up the skates. That group includes Gabriel Bourque (Laval), Steven Fogarty (Iowa), Michael Mersch (Rochester), and Brett Sutter (Calgary), who all have served as AHL captains. Sutter will remain with the Wranglers as he begins a new career as an assistant coach. Chicago defenseman Matt Donovan also retired and has joined the rival Milwaukee Admirals as an assistant coach.
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.
