{"id":690919,"date":"2026-06-08T03:24:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-08T03:24:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/690919\/"},"modified":"2026-06-08T03:24:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-08T03:24:09","slug":"marlies-win-eastern-conference-championship-theahl-com","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/690919\/","title":{"rendered":"Marlies win Eastern Conference championship | TheAHL.com"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Toronto Marlies are heading to the 2026 Calder Cup Finals after capturing the Richard F. Canning Trophy<\/a> as the American Hockey League\u2019s Eastern Conference champions with a 2-1 overtime victory over the Wilkes-Barre\/Scranton Penguins on Sunday evening.<\/p>\n

With a 4-2 series win, the Marlies have advanced to their third Calder Cup Finals, and their first since winning the championship in 2018.<\/p>\n

Former Penguin Alex Nylander<\/a> scored the series-clinching goal at 13:44 of overtime, snapping a shot from between the circles that got through Sergei Murashov<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Wilkes-Barre\/Scranton opened the scoring 6:26 into the game when Aidan McDonough<\/a> converted six seconds into a Pens power play, wristing a shot from the left-wing dot past Artur Akhtyamov<\/a> for his second goal of the series and fourth of the playoffs.<\/p>\n

The Marlies answered at 9:11 of the second period when Easton Cowan<\/a> cleaned up a rebound of a close-in attempt by Ryan Tverberg<\/a>. It was Cowan\u2019s third goal of the series and his fourth in his last five games played.<\/p>\n

Akhtyamov (11-6) made 39 saves on the night, shutting out the Penguins over the final 67-plus minutes. Murashov (8-7) stopped 37 of 39 shots.<\/p>\n

The Marlies, the top development team of the NHL\u2019s Toronto Maple Leafs, are 12-7 this postseason after finishing fourth in the North Division with a record of 36-26-5-5 (82 points). Their .569 points percentage is the lowest by an eventual Calder Cup finalist since Wilkes-Barre\/Scranton (.538) reached the Finals in 2004.<\/p>\n

Led by third-year head coach John Gruden, Toronto has defeated Rochester (2-1), Laval (3-2), Cleveland (3-2) and Wilkes-Barre\/Scranton (4-2) to win the Eastern Conference championship. They will face the winner of the Western Conference Finals between the Colorado Eagles and the Chicago Wolves.<\/p>\n

Established in 1990, the AHL\u2019s Eastern Conference championship trophy honors Richard F. Canning, who served the AHL for more than 50 years during his career including a term as league president from 1958-61. Mr. Canning is recognized as the author of the AHL\u2019s constitution, by-laws and regulations.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

(Toronto wins series, 4-2)
Game 1 \u2013 Wed., May 27 \u2013 Toronto 4, W-B\/SCRANTON 2<\/a>
Game 2 \u2013 Fri., May 29 \u2013 Toronto 2, W-B\/SCRANTON 1 (OT)<\/a>
Game 3 \u2013 Mon., June 1 \u2013 W-B\/Scranton 5, TORONTO 3<\/a>
Game 4 \u2013 Wed., June 3 \u2013 W-B\/Scranton 4, TORONTO 3<\/a>
Game 5 \u2013 Fri., June 5 \u2013 TORONTO 5, W-B\/Scranton 1<\/a>
Game 6 \u2013 Sun., June 7 \u2013 Toronto 2, W-B\/SCRANTON 1 (OT)<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Toronto Marlies are heading to the 2026 Calder Cup Finals after capturing the Richard F. Canning Trophy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":690920,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":["post-690919","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\/690919","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=690919"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/690919\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/690920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=690919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=690919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=690919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}