Pelletier named AHL Player of the Year after 77-point season

Jakob Pelletier’s season did not just win a scoring race. It separated him from the pack, carried Syracuse into the Calder Cup chase, and earned him the AHL’s top individual honor as the league named him the Fortune Tires “Expect More” AHL Player of the Year.

The award recognizes one standout player for exceptional performance over the full season, and Pelletier made the choice hard to argue. Fortune Tires will donate $2,500 to his charity of choice and give him a set of four tires, but the real payoff was on the ice: 28 goals, 49 assists and 77 points in 63 games, plus a plus-25 rating that showed the production was not coming at the expense of his team.

Pelletier’s value went beyond raw totals. He led AHL forwards with 31 power-play points, tied for the league lead with five shorthanded goals and put together a 20-game scoring streak, the longest by an AHL skater in more than 17 years. That kind of spread across even-strength play, special teams and short-handed situations is why the honor feels earned rather than ceremonial. Pelletier was not padding numbers in easy minutes; he was changing games in every phase.

The season also clarified where Pelletier sits in the broader picture of his career. He became only the second Syracuse Crunch player to win the AHL scoring title, joining Carter Verhaeghe, who did it in 2018-19. Pelletier, a first-round pick by Calgary in the 2019 NHL Draft, had already been through the league’s developmental grind, earning a spot on the AHL All-Rookie Team in 2021-22 and later being voted a First Team AHL All-Star this season. He also made his first AHL All-Star Classic in February in Rockford, Illinois, a fitting stage for a player whose season had already turned into a league-wide statement.

The late-season and playoff numbers made the award even harder to dismiss. Pelletier was returned to Syracuse from Tampa Bay on April 18 and had appeared in five NHL games this season, but he carried his AHL form straight into the Calder Cup race with five points in four playoff games. That is the difference between a good scorer and a player who can tilt a series. Arthur Kaliyev’s 40 goals for Belleville won the Willie Marshall Award and underscored how crowded the scoring race was, but Pelletier’s combination of volume, timing and special-teams impact made him the season’s most valuable offensive force.