The Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins' first Calder Cup playoff bid since 2018 ended on Sunday with a second-round sweep by the Springfield Thunderbirds.
Wilkes-Barre entered the game at home needing to win three consecutive games after losing the first two games of the best-of-five round by margins of 4-1 and 6-2 last week.
Wilkes-Barre seemed poised to extend its season after the first 20 minutes on Sunday. Jonathan Gruden finished on a 3-on-2 rush early into the game to open the scoring. The Thunderbirds responded with a tying goal on the power play, but goals in the last 10 minutes of the period from Filip Hallander, Sam Poulin (a power play tally) and Nathan Legare put Wilkes-Barre up 4-1 at the first intermission. It was just Legare's second game of the playoffs after being a healthy scratch more often not toward the end of the regular season and the start of the postseason, and he was having a great individual game after also setting up Gruden's opening goal.
Springfield spent much of the second period on the power play. They opened the period on the man advantage after Kyle Olson's interference minor in the waning seconds of the first period carried over. A hooking minor from Kasper Bjorkqvist at 2:12, a tripping call on Mitch Reinke at 9:34, and an interference call on Gruden at 10:12 made sure that the Thunderbirds would stay on the man advantage. They outshot the Penguins 19-5 in that period, and tied the game with three goals -- two even strength, one on the power play -- in a span of less than seven minutes.
"The second period we had to deal with a bunch of penalties in succession," coach J.D. Forrest said after the game. "They were able to capitalize on those and then we kind of got out of a rhythm."
Two goals less than three minutes apart put Springfield ahead 6-4 in the third period. Poulin quickly responded with his second power play goal of the game. The Thunderbirds regained their two-goal lead with another power play goal later in the period, and Alex Nylander again quickly responded to cut the Springfield lead back to one goal. The Penguins pulled goaltender Tommy Nappier in favor of the extra attacker with over two minutes remaining, but were unable to find the tying goal. They dropped Game 3 by a score of 7-6, ending the season.
"There's certainly no quit in this team," Forrest said. "Regardless of the score, situation, it was an interesting one, for sure. There was never a point we felt like we wouldn't be able to claw back, we just kept getting hit penalty, penalty, penalty. It's hard to play like that. Some guys are seeing a ton of it. Some guys are on the bench waiting. That took its toll."
Even though Wilkes-Barre's run ended prematurely, Forrest thinks that this will stand to be a valuable learning experience toward the development of the Penguins' young players.
"You know, it's a razor sharp wire that you're dancing on in the playoffs," Forrest said of what he hoped his players would take away. "From the first game into this game, everything's tight, magnified."
Another thing Forrest said he hopes his players take away from this is just how the team was able to turn its season around after being out of a playoff spot, toward the bottom of the league standings after a couple of months into the season.
"Where we were in December and how we finished up, I think that says, volumes about the growth of our young players about the leadership of our veterans," Forrest said. "Just the way that the team adapted and evolved and continued to get better. You look back on the season, and some of the guys went through a rough patch to get there, but hopefully they understand that they came out of this better players, better people, more experienced pros. That'll take us further in the next playoff push."
