{"id":662005,"date":"2026-05-24T08:52:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-24T08:52:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/662005\/"},"modified":"2026-05-24T08:52:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-24T08:52:10","slug":"penguins-romp-into-conference-finals-theahl-com","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/662005\/","title":{"rendered":"Penguins romp into conference finals | TheAHL.com"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tristan Broz<\/a> scored twice in a four-goal first period, setting the table for Wilkes-Barre\/Scranton to eliminate Springfield with a resounding 8-1 win in Game 5 of the Atlantic Division finals at Mohegan Arena on Saturday evening.<\/p>\n

The Penguins will take on the winner of Sunday\u2019s Game 5 in the North Division between Cleveland and Toronto. The Eastern Conference Finals will begin in Wilkes-Barre next week, the Pens\u2019 first appearance in the conference finals since 2014.<\/p>\n

Broz opened the scoring 3:56 into the contest, driving through the Springfield defense and backhanding a shot past Georgii Romanov<\/a>.<\/p>\n

He then assisted on Harrison Brunicke<\/a>\u2019s goal at 7:43 off a two-on-one rush to make it 2-0, prompting Thunderbirds head coach Steve Ott to use his timeout.<\/p>\n

Broz netted his second goal on a power play as he found himself alone between the circles with time to put a wrister past the blocker of Romanov with 3:43 to go in the opening frame.<\/p>\n

Rafa\u00ebl Harvey-Pinard<\/a>, back in the Penguins\u2019 lineup after missing the previous five games due to injury, scored his first goal of the postseason with 20.4 seconds left before the first intermission.<\/p>\n

Atley Calvert<\/a> extended the Wilkes-Barre\/Scranton lead to 5-0 when he put a rebound past backup goaltender Vadim Zherenko<\/a> at 17:21 of the second period, and Ville Koivunen<\/a>\u2019s power-play tally at 2:52 of the third made it 6-0. Broz picked up an assist on that goal for his fourth point of the night.<\/p>\n

Akil Thomas<\/a> finally got Springfield on the board at 4:30, but Harvey-Pinard hit an empty net from 170 feet out and Koivunen tacked on an eighth goal with 9:18 remaining.<\/p>\n

Sergei Murashov<\/a> stopped 26 of 27 shots for the Penguins, finishing the series with a 1.55 goals-against average and a .949 save percentage in the five games.<\/p>\n

The seven-goal margin of victory matched the largest ever in a winner-take-all Calder Cup Playoff game, joining Grand Rapids\u2019 7-0 win over Houston in 2013 and Quebec\u2019s 8-1 victory over Providence in 1969.<\/p>\n

The Thunderbirds began and ended their Calder Cup Playoffs with 8-1 losses; in the 10 games in between, they went 7-3, allowed 16 goals and eliminated two of the top five teams in the AHL.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

(W-B\/Scranton wins series, 3-2)
Game 1 \u2013 Tue., May 12 \u2013 W-B\/SCRANTON 2, Springfield 0<\/a>
Game 2 \u2013 Thu., May 14 \u2013 Springfield 4, W-B\/SCRANTON 3 (OT)<\/a>
Game 3 \u2013 Tue., May 19 \u2013 W-B\/Scranton 2, SPRINGFIELD 1<\/a>
Game 4 \u2013 Thu., May 21 \u2013 SPRINGFIELD 2, W-B\/Scranton 0<\/a>
Game 5 \u2013 Sat., May 23 \u2013 W-B\/SCRANTON 8, Springfield 1<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tristan Broz scored twice in a four-goal first period, setting the table for Wilkes-Barre\/Scranton to eliminate Springfield with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":662006,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":["post-662005","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662005","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=662005"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662005\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/662006"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=662005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=662005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=662005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}