Nearly eight months of hockey have brought two far-flung opponents together for the Calder Cup Finals.

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The Charlotte Checkers will host the Abbotsford Canucks in Game 1 of the best-of-seven series this Friday night at Bojangles Coliseum. The series will follow a 2-3-2 format and could extend as late as June 25. Both teams have been through the 72-game regular-season schedule and now what could be two months 

Combined, they have faced elimination, knocked out the back-to-back defending Calder Cup champion, the AHL regular-season champion, and the Western Conference regular-season champion. They have been through feisty, emotional series as well as more clinical, methodical match-ups. They have faced rivals as well as unfamiliar foes.

And now they will face each other for the right to lift the Calder Cup. Neither of the teams’ NHL parent clubs, the Florida Panthers and Vancouver Canucks, have ever had an affiliate win the Calder Cup. That will change this month. And in the case of Florida and Charlotte, they have an opportunity to become the first organization to win the Stanley Cup and the Calder Cup in the same year since the New Jersey Devils and Albany River Rats did so in 1995.

Abbotsford Canucks

It was May 24, 2024 when the Vancouver Canucks brought in Abbotsford’s third head coach in four seasons. Jeremy Colliton had just departed for a post with the New Jersey Devils, and Vancouver turned to Malhotra, a long-time NHL forward who played 991 regular-season games at the highest level of the sport and had been a 1998 first-round pick by the New York Rangers.

Abbotsford got off to a rather ho-hum start, sitting at 6-8-0-1 on Nov. 16 and at one point losing five out of six games. They rallied to win eight of their next 10 games, but even by Jan. 4 they only had a 14-15-1-1 record following a 6-2 thrashing at Laval. From there, however, they took off, posting a seven-game winning streak.

Two deals have added considerable help for Malhotra’s roster. Defenseman Victor Mancini came over from the Hartford Wolf Pack as part of the J.T. Miller deal with the Rangers. The prospect spent time with Abbotsford, got an extended look with Vancouver, and then returned to Abbotsford for this playoff run.

On March 8 they acquired power forward Jujhar Khaira from the Syracuse Crunch in an AHL swap. That same night they put away the visiting San Jose Barracuda in overtime, 5-4, to begin a 13-game winning streak that sent them racing up the Pacific Division standings. In all, they took at least a point in 17 of their final 18 regular-season games (16-1-0-1) to earn a second-place finish in the Pacific Division.

This playoff journey began April 23 as they faced the Tucson Roadrunners in a best-of-three first-round series. It nearly did not get any further than that, however. After a 4-3 win in Game 1, they dropped a 4-1 decision in Game 2 that put them on the brink of elimination. However, they rallied with a 5-0 win to move into the Pacific Division Semifinals against the Coachella Valley Firebirds, who had been back-to-back Calder Cup finalists. In that best-of-five series, the Canucks grabbed Game 1 on the road, but three first-period Firebirds goals in Game 2 chased starter Artūrs Šilovs in an eventual 5-4 overtime loss. The series went north to Abbotsford, where the Canucks took two straight wins to end that series.

Next came a meeting with the Colorado Eagles, the Western Conference regular-season champion, in the Pacific Division Finals. The teams split the first four games of the best-of-five series, before the Canucks blew out the Eagles in Colorado, 5-0.

Three series in, and the Canucks had put themselves into the Western Conference Finals against the Texas Stars. By this point, Šilovs had established himself as one of the top stories of this year’s Calder Cup Playoffs. After a 3-2 overtime home win in Game 1, Šilovs recorded his fifth postseason shutout with a 1-0 win in Game 2. The penalty kill had excelled, too, shutting down 39 of 40 opposing power-play chances. But the Stars rallied back on home ice in Game 3, burning the Canucks twice on the power play, adding two more shorthanded goals, and handing the visitors a 5-2 loss. Danila Klimovich, who had been in and out of Malhotra’s line-up this postseason, won Game 5 in overtime with a dazzling effort to secure a 3-1 series lead. But the Stars kept pushing, grabbing a 2-1 overtime win in Game 5 to push the series back to Abbotsford.

Abbotsford had been hit hard by late-season recalls to Vancouver, but got considerable help when those players returned.

Šilovs, Mancini, defenseman Kirill Kudryavtsev, and forwards Linus Karlsson, Jonathan Lekkerimäki, Ty Mueller, Aatu Räty, and Max Sasson all came back from Vancouver following NHL stints of varying lengths.

This will be the fourth time that a Vancouver affiliate has reached the Calder Cup Finals. The Utica Comets went to the 2015 Calder Cup Finals, losing to the Manchester Monarchs. Affiliated with the Manitoba Moose, Canucks prospects went to the 2009 Calder Cup Finals but fell to the Hershey Bears. And in 1988 in Vancouver’s dual affiliation with the Quebec Nordiques, the Fredericton Express were swept by Hershey.

Charlotte Checkers

With the Florida Panthers have been in an extended run as Stanley Cup contenders, the Charlotte line-up is far less prospect-heavy than most AHL clubs.

But no matter. The prospects that the Panthers do have stationed in Charlotte have shown considerable growth, and the Florida-Charlotte affiliation has surrounded them with all kinds of experience.

Last summer the two sides got down to business, with the Checkers bringing in the likes of Trevor Carrick, one of the AHL’s top defenseman across the past decade and someone who won the 2019 Calder Cup when the Checkers were still affiliated with Carolina. Also joining on an AHL deal was forward John Leonard, who tied for second in the AHL with 36 goals in the regular season, and Florida signed defenseman Jaycob Megna (who has missed the postseason after playing 64 regular-season games for the Checkers). Forward MacKenzie Entwistle, who also came to the Florida organization, missed most of the regular season and a portion of the postseason but has been a valuable contributor since rejoining the Charlotte line-up.

Goaltender Kaapo Kähkönen came over from the Winnipeg Jets organization in a March 7 deal for fellow veteran Chris Driedger. Forward Jesse Puljujärvi also came to the Checkers on a professional tryout deal in February before signing a deal with the Panthers on March 4.

Leading it all has been head coach Geordie Kinnear has been a fixture in the Florida organization since coming over from the Carolina Hurricanes in 2016.

Like Abbotsford, the Checkers went through their own brushes with elimination early in the Calder Cup Playoffs. Finishing second in the Atlantic Division, they earned a first-round bye. They started off in the Atlantic Division Semifinals facing the dangerous Providence Bruins. After taking the first two games of the series in Providence, they took back-to-back defeats at Bojangles Coliseum that forced them into a decisive Game 5. In that game on May 11, the Checkers put together one of the top single-game performances in years. They smothered the P-Bruins, holding the visitors to just eight shots and taking a 5-2 victory.

That series win moved the Checkers into the Atlantic Division Finals against Hershey, a team seeking its third consecutive Calder Cup title and an opponent that finished second overall in the regular season. But the Checkers swiped the first two games at home before going to Hershey and finishing off the Bears in a series sweep.

Matched up with the Laval Rocket, the AHL’s regular-season champion, the experienced Checkers jumped on their inexperienced foe and blew out the hosts in Games 1 and 2 at Place Bell. They continued to hammer the Rocket with a Game 3 victory before finishing off the sweep at home on Puljujärvi’s winner with 2:04 left to go in regulation.

This will be the first time that a Florida affiliate has ever reached the Calder Cup Finals.

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