Toronto one win from Calder Cup as AHL alumni shine in NHL playoffs
Toronto entered Game 4 one win from the Calder Cup after Artur Akhtyamov’s shutout, while Brandon Bussi, Jalen Chatfield and Pyotr Kochetkov kept the AHL-to-NHL pipeline in the spotlight.
Toronto walked into Game 4 at Coca-Cola Coliseum one win from the Calder Cup and with the kind of momentum that changes a series. The Marlies led Chicago 3-0 after Easton Cowan scored 2:47 into the second period of a 1-0 Game 3 win, and Artur Akhtyamov turned aside 24 shots to push Toronto to the brink in front of a home crowd seeing the club for the first time in 11 days.
The way the Finals have played out has made every mistake feel bigger. Game 3 was the 18th shutout of the 2026 Calder Cup Playoffs, the most in a single postseason in AHL history, and both teams had been stuck without a power-play goal in the series. That has put the pressure squarely on five-on-five execution and goaltending, where Akhtyamov has been cleaner and more decisive than Chicago has managed to match. Toronto’s lineup also got a small lift with Jacob Quillan back in the Marlies group, while Chicago welcomed Felix Unger Sörum back into its lineup as the Wolves tried to halt the series from slipping away.
What made Morning Skate broader than a standard Finals snapshot was the reminder that the AHL’s biggest stage still feeds the NHL’s biggest one. Carolina’s Stanley Cup championship brought another wave of alumni recognition, led by Brandon Bussi’s 22-save shutout to clinch the title, plus Jalen Chatfield and Pyotr Kochetkov joining the short list of players who have won both the Stanley Cup and the Calder Cup. They became the 134th and 135th players in league history to do it, a sharp illustration of the AHL’s claim that more than 87 percent of current NHL players are graduates of the league.
Toronto’s own history raised the stakes even more. The Marlies last won the Calder Cup in 2018, beating Texas in Game 7 at Ricoh Coliseum to secure Toronto’s first men’s pro hockey championship since 1967, with that roster including Trevor Moore, Travis Dermott, Pierre Engvall, Justin Holl, Andreas Johnsson and Mason Marchment. This year’s run has moved through Rochester, Laval, Cleveland and Wilkes-Barre/Scranton before landing in the Finals against a Chicago team that got here by beating Texas and Grand Rapids, and the combination of a title on the line and NHL playoff pedigree on display made the day feel larger than one AHL box score.
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