Patrick Williams, TheAHL.com Features Writer
Last June the Coachella Valley Firebirds endured an ultimate gut punch. They had built a 2-0 series lead in the Calder Cup Finals by shutting out Hershey in Games 1 and 2. They had staved off elimination by taking Game 6. They were in front of their passionate fans in Palm Desert, and had built a two-goal second-period lead in Game 7.
Then came a pair of Hershey goals. Then a scoreless third period. Then overtime. Then the bitter end of what had been a storybook inaugural season, as the Bears skated the Calder Cup around Acrisure Arena ice while the Firebirds went to their dressing room to begin their summer.
“I think… When do you get over it?” Firebirds head coach Dan Bylsma said, searching for his words. “You don’t ever get over it, I don’t think.”
But a team can grow and move forward, and Bylsma’s club is ready for another shot – even if there have been some trying lessons on the path back to the Calder Cup Playoffs this year.
So a loss in Game 1 of their Pacific Division semifinal series to Dustin Wolf and the Calgary Wranglers on Friday night is not going to faze this group. Much of the Firebirds’ core returned after going through a five-round grind last spring that saw them face elimination six times.
This is a team that can play pressure hockey.
“It was just such a long, drawn-out battle… We gained so much experience from it,” said captain Max McCormick, who supplied a career-best 32 goals this season to rank second in team scoring. “The way that ended was heartbreaking. I think it motivated us even more over the summer and throughout the season, and I think there’s a lot of hunger on our team, for sure.”
In their 2024 postseason opener at Scotiabank Saddledome on Friday, the Firebirds were in a tie game through 40 minutes until Calgary pulled away. They put 36 shots on Wolf. But they still find themselves down 1-0 in the best-of-five.
Game 2 is in Calgary this afternoon, and then the Firebirds have home ice for the remainder of the series. Against a team like the Wranglers – who endured their own heartbreak with a winner-take-all overtime loss to Coachella Valley in the division finals a year ago – the Firebirds will need to reach back to that experience they have acquired the hard way. They know that.
“They’re a battle-tested, playoff-type of team,” Bylsma said of the Wranglers, who finished seventh in the Pacific Division before upsetting Tucson in a first-round sweep.
Coachella Valley lost two big pieces of last year’s team in playoff hero Joey Daccord and AHL rookie of the year Tye Kartye, who both locked down full-time roles with the parent Seattle Kraken. But core players like McCormick, Kole Lind, Cameron Hughes and Andrew Poturalski are all back. Top prospect Shane Wright now has a full year of pro experience under his belt. Ryan Winterton, Logan Morrison and Ville Ottavainen all impressed in their rookie AHL seasons.
A new identity had to be forged that blended the hard-earned experience from last spring with the know-how of arriving players. And the path to rectifying that Game 7 loss to Hershey themselves had to be traveled in stages, beginning with a full six-month, 72-game regular season. Fast-forwarding to this postseason was not an option.
It took some time, as the Firebirds started the season at 6-5-0-0. But the rest of the way, they went 40-10-6-5, rolling to a division title with the second-best record in the league at 103 points.
“I think the burning desire is to get back there as quickly as you possibly can,” Bylsma said. “You want to have redemption for that loss. We started the season wanting to get back there right away, and that doesn’t happen overnight. You don’t get to go replay it.
“It happens over the course of 72 games. It happens over the course of building a good team, building how you’re going to win hockey games together with this group, so that you do have an opportunity to do it in the playoffs.”
Today’s Game 2 is a big one if the Firebirds want a different outcome this postseason. They have had success against Calgary and against Wolf, whose numbers against Coachella Valley (3.11, .902) are well off his numbers against the rest of the AHL (2.09, .933) over the last two seasons.
“I think we left that bitter pill behind us a long time ago,” Bylsma said. “We focused on what this team can become. I think the guys have done a great job of that, and they’ve given themselves the opportunity now to rewrite that story that we left last year with.”
TheAHL.com features writer Patrick Williams has been on the American Hockey League beat for nearly two decades for outlets including NHL.com, Sportsnet, TSN, The Hockey News, SiriusXM NHL Network Radio and SLAM! Sports, and was most recently the co-host of The Hockey News On The ‘A’ podcast. He was the recipient of the AHL’s James H. Ellery Memorial Award for his outstanding coverage of the league in 2016.