New York. Swedish defender Gabriel Karlsson is the new AHL champion.
Tonight the Hershey Bears win Game 7 of the Calder Cup against the Coachella Valley Firebirds – after a senseless sudden death drama.
It may seem strange that hockey season is in North America no It ends with the last Stanley Cup Final, but so be it.
The AHL’s farm league playoffs always go on, and not until early this morning, just over a week after the Vegas Golden Knights’ victory party on the ice at T-Mobile Arena, did the so-called Calder Cup Final come to a close.
And with the utmost drama. The Seattle Kraken’s freshman farm team, the Coachella Valley Firebirds, faced off against the longtime Washington Capitals’ Hershey Bears in Game 7 at Acrisure Arena outside Palm Springs — and it was only decided when Bears veteran Mike Vecchione, with a record-breaking three NHL total, was 16: 19 In the first overtime period he caught a rebound in front of team goaltender Joey Dacor and shot 3-2.
A severe blow for the Firebirds, who are quickly becoming a raucous crowd in the desert east of Los Angeles, especially given their 2-0 lead midway through the period. But Hershey was clearly sharper in the second half of the game and won fairly.
26-year-old defender Gabriel Karlsson, best known in Sweden for his efforts with Linköping, is on the rocks in Hershey and with this stunning victory he became the 33rd Swede in history to win the Calder Cup.
With the losers found was defenseman Gustav Olofsson and the phenomenally talented forward Jesper Froden – the latter noted for helping with the drama that definitively ended the 2022-2023 hockey season.
