East seeding, final Calder Cup berth to be decided Sunday in AHL finale

Providence has the Macgregor Kilpatrick Trophy in hand, but the East still has real stakes going into the regular-season finale. The AHL’s 2025-26 schedule ends Sunday, April 19, and the 23-team Calder Cup Playoffs field will not be fully set until the last games sort out the Atlantic order, the North bubble and the final bracket lines.

Providence already clinched the league’s regular-season championship and is carrying a 12th straight playoff appearance, the longest active streak in the AHL. The Bruins were 42-11-1-0 with 85 points and a .787 points percentage when they clinched, and they were still chasing the 1992-93 Binghamton Rangers for the best regular-season record in league history. That matters because in the Atlantic, the top two teams get byes into the division semifinals, while seeds three through six are stuck in best-of-three first-round series.

The Atlantic field is mostly settled, with Providence, Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, Charlotte, Bridgeport, Hershey and Springfield all already in the playoff field. Bridgeport reached the postseason for the first time since 2022 and did it on a surge that included eight wins in its last 10 games and 10 straight home victories. The Islanders clinched with a 4-1 win over Hartford on April 12. Hershey punched its ticket with a 5-1 win over Wilkes-Barre/Scranton on April 15, and Springfield locked up its spot the same day by beating Lehigh Valley 7-1.

That still leaves the final Atlantic seeding picture and the next-round matchups open to movement. Lehigh Valley and Hartford are still in the late scramble, and Sunday’s results will decide who gets the cleaner path and who gets thrown into a tougher opening series.

The North Division is part of the East bracket fight too, and that is where the final berth drama hangs on the edge. Laval, Syracuse, Cleveland, Toronto and Rochester are all involved in the seeding and qualification math, with Rochester still on the bubble in the latest standings snapshot. Cleveland already clinched its third straight postseason trip on April 3, while Grand Rapids was the first team in the league to secure a playoff spot on February 27. By the end of Sunday, the East will finally stop shifting and the Calder Cup bracket will be locked in.