Springfield Stuns Providence in Overtime, Completes Historic Upset

Dillon Dube ended it 4:01 into overtime, and with one three-on-two rush Springfield turned the AHL playoffs upside down. Marc-André Gaudet intercepted the puck at the Springfield blue line, pushed it up the left side to Otto Stenberg, and Stenberg slipped it to Chris Wagner before Dube drove the net and finished the 1-0 clincher over Providence.

That goal closed the Atlantic Division semifinal in four games and completed what the league called the largest upset in Calder Cup Playoff history. Providence had finished 38 points ahead of Springfield, won the Macgregor Kilpatrick Trophy as the AHL’s regular-season champion, and posted a 54-14-2-0 record for 110 points. Springfield still knocked out the league’s top seed in a series that exposed how thin the margin can be when a hotter team has the better goalie and the better habits in the dirty areas.

Georgi Romanov was the backbone of the shock. He stopped 37 shots in Game 4 and finished the series with a 1.47 goals-against average and a .953 save percentage, giving Springfield the kind of night-to-night stability Providence never fully solved. Michael DiPietro did his part for the Bruins with 27 saves, but the former regular-season MVP and Baz Bastien Award winner could not overcome Springfield’s pressure, pace and structure. The Thunderbirds had already beaten Charlotte after dropping Game 1, and Game 3 against Providence was their third straight come-from-behind win, a run that showed the group never panicked when it fell behind the script.

Springfield’s depth also mattered. Dube finished the series with two goals and five points, while the Game 4 lineup included AHL debuts for St. Louis first-round picks Adam Jiříček and Justin Carbonneau. For a team that spent the spring proving it could keep surviving elimination moments, those fresh legs fit the moment. Providence, meanwhile, has now lost eight of its last nine playoff series since reaching the Eastern Conference Finals in 2017, a brutal trend that makes this collapse sting even more.

Springfield now moves on to face the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins, with Games 1 and 2 set for May 12 and May 14 at Mohegan Arena at Casey Plaza in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.