AHL Calder Cup playoffs: Andrew John and Shad Powers talk Firebirds
With an eye on the Western Conference Finals, Desert Sun sports reporter Andrew John and sports columnist Shad Powers talk all things Firebirds.
Yep. Turns out all those little things the Coachella Valley Firebirds have been doing all postseason to win close games also come in handy in the Calder Cup Finals.
It only took 60 minutes of hockey to show the Hershey Bears and remind the Firebirds fans that the 2024 Firebirds are a different team than the 2023 Firebirds. Coachella Valley showed off what has become its trademark grit, resolve and unflappable-ness in a crucial 4-3 victory Friday, needing just one game to wrest home-ice advantage away from the Bears.
The three games these two teams played at Hershey during last year’s Calder Cup Finals were the stuff of nightmares for the Firebirds. Three straight losses, all by one goal, two in overtime. Win any of those games and the Firebirds are probably going for a repeat Calder Cup title.
But in 2023 it was Hershey who had the grittiness and guile it took to win close games in the playoffs. And perhaps it was those kinds of losses to the Bears that drove coach Dan Bylsma and the Firebirds to change in certain ways this year. Because in this postseason, it’s been the Firebirds displaying those qualities, and sure enough they added up to a road win Friday.
All three ingredients in the Firebirds’ close-game playoff recipe were baked into this win.
Unwavering confidence
I hate to lean into the whole unflappable-Birds wordplay, but there’s just not a better word to describe this group. They do not get rattled. Imagine playing in a place where you’ve never won, and 90 seconds into the game Hershey gets one of the all-time fluke goals when an errant pass hits the skate of the Firebirds’ Ryker Evans and trickles into the goal before he can get his stick on it to knock it away.
It took me no time to go into “uh oh, the Firebirds just can’t win in this house of horrors” mode, but this year’s Firebirds don’t think like that. They’re not hoping they score a bounce-back goal. They believe it to be a simple inevitability that when the other team scores, they will respond within the next five minutes. It’s happened several times already this postseason, and it happened twice on Friday.
Sure enough, John Hayden, who seems to stumble out of bed and score goals these days, tied the game with a short-handed tally and the momentum was firmly with the Firebirds from…
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