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SPRINGFIELD, Mass. – After finishing the biggest series upset in Calder Cup Playoff history by point differential, the\u00a0red-hot Springfield Thunderbirds have punched their ticket to the Atlantic Division Finals, where they will face the number-two seeded Wilkes-Barre\/Scranton Penguins in a best-of-five series.<\/p>\n
Steve Ott’s T-Birds, who finished 38 points behind the Providence Bruins in the regular season standings, knocked off the Macgregor Kilpatrick Trophy winners in a four-game series to advance to the Atlantic\u00a0Division Finals for the first time since 2022.<\/p>\n
The T-Birds will open the series in Wilkes-Barre, Pa. at Mohegan Arena at Casey Plaza. The full series schedule can be seen below:<\/p>\n
Game 1 @ Mohegan Arena at Casey Plaza – Tuesday, May 12 at 7:05 p.m.Game 2 @ Mohegan Arena at Casey Plaza – Thursday, May 14 at\u00a07:05 p.m.Game 3 @ MassMutual Center – Tuesday, May 19 at\u00a07:05 p.m.Game 4* @ MassMutual Center – Thursday, May 21 at\u00a07:05 p.m.Game 5* @ Mohegan Arena at Casey Plaza – Saturday at\u00a0May 23, 6:05 p.m.<\/p>\n
*Games 4 & 5 only to be played if necessary*<\/p>\n
The Penguins earned their spot in the Atlantic Division Finals after eliminating the Hershey Bears in four games. This series marks the second time the T-Birds and Penguins will face off in the Calder Cup Playoffs. Springfield completed a three-game sweep of Wilkes-Barre\/Scranton in the 2022 Atlantic Division Semifinals, a series most remembered for Joel Hofer’s goalie goal in Game 2 in Springfield on May 12, 2022.<\/p>\n
Wilkes-Barre\/Scranton won three of the four meetings with Springfield during the regular season, but the T-Birds won the latest battle between the clubs, 5-4, on March 4 at Mohegan Arena at Casey Plaza. The Penguins’ 101 points during the regular season was third in the AHL behind only Providence and Grand Rapids.<\/p>\n
The series features a tantalizing goaltending matchup between two Russian-born backstops playing at an extremely high level. Since taking over the Springfield net for Game 2 of its First Round series in Charlotte, Georgi Romanov has been the T-Birds’ most valuable asset, going 5-1 with a 1.42 goals-against average and .954 save percentage in six starts.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Penguins’ rookie netminder Sergei Murashov was named to the AHL’s All-Rookie Team after posting a 24-9-4 record during the regular season. He led all rookie goalies with a 2.20 goals-against average and posted a .919 save percentage in 38 games. Murashov won both his starts against Springfield during the regular season, allowing just four goals on 59 shots.<\/p>\n
Fans can secure their Game 3 and Game 4 tickets at the Thunderdome right now by visiting www.SpringfieldThunderbirds.com<\/a>\u00a0or by calling (413) 739-GOAL (4625).\u00a0<\/p>\n Thunderbirds’ Pay As We Play playoff plans are also available now for no upfront cost and ensure your seat for all T-Birds Calder Cup playoff games. In addition, 2026-27\u00a0season tickets are available now – fans can order now by visiting www.SpringfieldThunderbirds.com<\/a> or by calling (413) 739-GOAL (4625).\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SPRINGFIELD, Mass. – After finishing the biggest series upset in Calder Cup Playoff history by point differential, the\u00a0red-hot…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":657261,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[21551,64,63,28543,10680,16308,575,7821,85,317823],"class_list":["post-657260","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-atlantic","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-division","tag-face","tag-finals","tag-nhl","tag-penguins","tag-sports","tag-t-birds"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657260","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=657260"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657260\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/657261"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=657260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=657260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=657260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}