Marlies, Eagles push for conference finals closeouts in Game 6s

The safest team in a tied best-of-seven has usually been the Game 5 winner, and the AHL’s record backed that up with 119 series wins in 144 chances, an 82.6 percent clip. That was the pressure hanging over Sunday’s two Game 6s, with Toronto and Colorado trying to finish at home while Wilkes-Barre/Scranton and Chicago tried to drag both conference finals back to another night.

Toronto carried the cleaner path into Wilkes-Barre/Scranton after a 5-1 Game 5 win that pushed the Marlies ahead 3-2 in the Eastern Conference Finals. Landon Sim flipped that game almost immediately, scoring 49 seconds after Toronto fell behind to Mikhail Ilyin, and the Marlies never let the Penguins settle in again. Bo Groulx, Easton Cowan and Marshall Rifai each had a goal and an assist, Artur Akhtyamov stopped 32 of 33 shots, and Toronto piled up five unanswered goals after Ilyin opened the scoring.

The response was more than a quick burst. Toronto’s special teams also tilted the series, with the Marlies going 4-for-10 on the power play and 9-for-10 on the penalty kill through five games. John Gruden called Sim “a breath of fresh air,” and that line fit the way Toronto has played in the series: fast, opportunistic and increasingly hard to push off its rhythm. William Villeneuve has been just as important from the blue line, scoring in seven straight games and posting 16 playoff points, the most by an AHL defenseman in the Calder Cup Playoffs since Ryker Evans in 2023.

The prize in the East is the Richard F. Canning Trophy, the AHL’s conference championship for the East. Toronto also carried real history into Game 6, having won the Canning Trophy in 2018 when it swept Lehigh Valley to reach the Calder Cup Finals for the second time in seven seasons.

Colorado had a different kind of momentum. The Eagles returned to Loveland leading Chicago 3-2 after a 7-3 Game 5 rout that broke open with three goals in less than three minutes early in the second period. After a stretch of tight, low-scoring games, Colorado finally created the separation it had been hunting, and now it had two chances to claim the Robert W. Clarke Trophy for the first time and reach its first Calder Cup Finals.

The Western Conference champion receives the Robert W. Clarke Trophy, established in 1990 and named for former AHL Board of Governors chairman Robert W. Clarke, who played a key role in the formation of the Rochester Americans. Colorado had already proved it could win a close one, beating Coachella Valley, 3-2, on May 20 to reach the Western Conference Finals.

Game 6 in Wilkes-Barre/Scranton was set for 6:05 p.m. EDT, and Game 6 in Colorado was set for 6:05 p.m. MDT. If either series survived, Game 7 would follow Monday in Loveland and Tuesday in Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, with the bracket one win away from shifting again.