Jakob Pelletier wins AHL scoring title, Arthur Kaliyev claims goal crown

Jakob Pelletier and Arthur Kaliyev turned the AHL’s scoring races into a clean snapshot of the league’s offensive pipeline, with Pelletier powering Syracuse as a do-everything creator and Kaliyev giving Belleville the kind of finishing touch that changes games in a hurry.

Pelletier captured the John B. Sollenberger Trophy after finishing with a league-best 77 points in 63 games, including 28 goals and 49 assists. He also tied for the AHL lead with five shorthanded goals, led all AHL forwards with 31 power-play points and closed with a 20-game scoring streak, the longest by an AHL skater in more than 17 years. The First Team All-Star selection, voted on by coaches, players and media from the league’s 32 member cities, put his full profile on display: plus-25, eight power-play goals, three game-winners and a season that made Syracuse’s offense run through him from start to finish. For the Crunch, the award carried extra weight because only Carter Verhaeghe had previously won a scoring title for the club, and Verhaeghe’s 2018-19 crown was the first ever by a Syracuse skater since Norm Locking of the Syracuse Stars in 1939-40.

Kaliyev claimed the Willie Marshall Award with a different kind of dominance. He finished with 40 goals, 28 assists and 68 points in 70 games for Belleville, led the AHL with 266 shots on goal and ranked second with 16 power-play goals. His seven-game goal streak from Nov. 8 to Nov. 21 matched the longest in the league this season, and his relentless shot volume made him one of the hardest players in the league to contain once he got into the offensive zone. The AHL’s goal-scoring trophy, established in 2004 in honor of Willie Marshall, now belongs to a player whose finishing touch matched the award’s purpose. Kaliyev, also a First Team All-Star, joined the Ottawa organization as a free agent in July 2025 after more than 200 NHL games, and Belleville GM Matt Turek said in January that his attitude had been great and that he had thrived with the Senators.

Seen together, the two titles say as much about NHL readiness as they do about AHL production. Pelletier, a first-round pick by Calgary in 2019 who also logged five NHL games with Tampa Bay this season, looks like the cleaner immediate return because his scoring came with penalty-killing value, power-play impact and playmaking. Kaliyev, a second-round pick by Los Angeles in 2019 who picked up one assist in two NHL games for Ottawa, gave Belleville the league’s purest goal threat. Both wingers forced their way into the next conversation at the top level, and both organizations now have a forward who made a scoring race look like a statement.