Cleveland edges Syracuse in overtime, playoff race tightens across AHL series
Hudson Fasching’s first playoff goal ended it in overtime, and Cleveland now leads Syracuse 2-1 with the North Division series on a knife edge. Toronto, Manitoba and Providence also swung their brackets.
Hudson Fasching turned a grinding North Division series on its head with one overtime shot, and Cleveland suddenly held the edge over Syracuse. The 10th-year pro, with 548 games of AHL and NHL experience, scored his first career postseason goal at 10:05 of overtime to send the Monsters past the Crunch, 4-3, and into Game 4 this afternoon with a 2-1 series lead.
Cleveland needed more than one hero to get there. Guillaume Richard scored twice for his second two-goal game of the season, Riley Bezeau added another goal, and Zach Sawchenko stopped 31 shots. Bezeau’s goal was his fourth in his last six playoff games, stretching back to Charlotte’s run to the 2025 Calder Cup Finals. Syracuse answered with goals from Spencer Kersten, Nick Abruzzese and Ethan Gauthier, and Kersten and Gauthier both scored the first playoff goals of their careers. The special teams still have room to decide this series, though, because neither club has scored a power-play goal yet.
That matters because Syracuse had outscored Cleveland 6-1 over the previous five periods before Fasching’s overtime winner flipped the mood of the matchup. What looked early like control for the Crunch now looks like a series the Monsters have dragged back into their terms, with the next game carrying real weight for both benches.
Toronto made its own statement by erasing Laval’s early hold on the series. The Rocket took Game 1, 3-1, at Place Bell behind Florian Xhekaj’s first-period opener, but the Marlies answered in Game 2 with six unanswered goals. Four came on the power play, and Toronto also added a shorthanded empty-netter, the kind of special-teams swing that can change a playoff round in one night.
Manitoba’s side of the bracket has been shaped by goaltending. Domenic DiVincentiis’ shutout gave the Moose a Game 1 win, and it was Manitoba’s first postseason shutout by a goalie in 15 years, dating back to Eddie Läck’s two shutouts in the 2011 Calder Cup Playoffs. Grand Rapids entered the matchup with a strong defensive case of its own, having allowed a league-low 159 goals in the regular season, 2.21 per game, while Michal Postava and Sebastian Cossa shared the 2025-26 Harry “Hap” Holmes Memorial Award. Postava signed with the Detroit Red Wings as a free agent on June 10, 2025 after winning a league title with HC Brno.
Providence and Springfield have kept their series tight as well, with the Bruins surviving a late push in a 2-1 Game 2 win that evened the set. All of the scoring came in the first period: Matěj Blümel and Georgii Merkulov scored for Providence around Dillon Dube’s power-play marker for Springfield, and Michael DiPietro and Georgi Romanov both delivered strong goaltending. With the AHL’s Division Semifinals set as best-of-five series in either 2-2-1 or 2-3 formats depending on building availability, every goal now carries immediate bracket consequences.
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