AHL head coaches openly will admit that they want no part of having to take on a best-of-three first-round series.

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Hershey Bears head coach Todd Nelson, who owns five Calder Cup titles, has no hesitancy to admit that belief. Other head coaches will as well. And even the ones who will wave away concerns about the slim margin for error will acknowledge that there is little time to waste.

The AHL introduced its new playoff format three years ago, and the best-of-three first round series came as a significant new wrinkle with that change.

The first two seeds in the Atlantic and Central Divisions get a first-round bye. So do the North Division’s top three teams. But the Pacific Division only offers a bye to its first-place finisher. Of the AHL’s 23 playoff teams, 12 of them will have to go through the best-of-three first round as part of the process to cut the postseason field down to 16 teams.

The first three nights of this year’s Calder Cup Playoffs have reinforced that belief. Too much can go wrong, too fast. Or it may not even require much to go wrong. It can be a bit of nerves for a team’s young players, running into a hot goaltender, or just a bad bounce here or there to put a team’s season on the line after just one game.

One top Eastern Conference contender, the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins, endured a gruesome 5-2 home loss in Game 1 to the Lehigh Valley Phantoms. Another power, the Providence Bruins, took a 2-1 loss to the Springfield Thunderbirds to open their series. Both Providence and Wilkes-Barre/Scranton had gotten reinforcements from their respective NHL parent teams, too. The Toronto Marlies dropped an overtime decision in Game 1 to Cleveland on Thursday night. Toronto had finished even with the third-place Syracuse Crunch at 86 points, but landed in fourth place on a tiebreaker. A third-place finish would have sent the Marlies into a best-of-five series with the Rochester Americans. Instead they must go best-of-three with the Monsters.

Out in the Western Conference, the Abbotsford Canucks, Calgary Wranglers, Chicago Wolves, Ontario Reign, and Tucson Roadrunners all face the same predicament. Abbotsford and Ontario, in particular, emerged from the regular season as solid Calder Cup contenders. The Canucks, second in the Pacific Division, unleashed a 13-game winning streak from March into April that nearly allowed them to knock off the Colorado Eagles for the first-place seed.  Ontario, forced to play the final two month of the regular season without top prospect Erik Portillo in net, took third place and went 7-3-0-0 to close out the regular season. The Chicago Wolves went to overtime in Game 1 with the Rockford IceHogs before losing in overtime. The Wolves, too, now face elimination.

There can be nerves, as Wilkes-Barre/Scranton head coach Kirk MacDonald stated. “I think we were just tight,” MacDonald told the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton media following Game 1. “Honestly, you could feel a little bit of the nerves early.”

Or it’s a hot goaltender in the opposite net. Providence outshot Springfield, 40-15, and controlled large stretches of play. But the P-Bruins fell behind 2-0 in the first period and had to contend with Springfield’s Colten Ellis, one of the AHL’s top netminders this season. Providence managed to cut that lead in half, but Ellis held firm late. Now it’s Providence’s season on the line going into Game 2 on the road Friday.

“It’s always important, I think, to get those jitters out early, keep it simple, play fast, get on that forecheck right away…,” P-Bruins interim head coach Trent Whitfield told the team website. “It will help relieve some of the nerves and just get us into the game.”

The Wolves visit Rockford tonight. If they are to get their series back home, they’ll need to win tonight. Toronto plays for its season Saturday afternoon back at home. If the Marlies can even the series, it would make for a quick turnaround. They would host the Monsters again on Sunday afternoon.

MacDonald put it simply enough to the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton media: “It’s a race to two wins.”