{"id":594146,"date":"2026-06-08T14:00:24","date_gmt":"2026-06-08T14:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/594146\/"},"modified":"2026-06-08T14:00:24","modified_gmt":"2026-06-08T14:00:24","slug":"ahl-playoff-update-wbs-eliminated-by-marlies-in-game-6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/594146\/","title":{"rendered":"AHL Playoff Update: WBS eliminated by Marlies in Game 6"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Wilkes-Barre\/Scranton Penguins hit the end of the line in the 2026 Calder Cup playoffs last night, dropping a 2-1 overtime game to the Toronto Marlies in Game 6. It was a bitter pill for a team to swallow to run out of gas and yield to an older, stronger opponent, but one that planted many promising seeds for the future.<\/p>\n

Here were the lines for the Pens, this graphic isn\u2019t even accurate as Owen Pickering (who took warmups) was a very last minute scratch, adding to the injury pile on the blueline. Alex Alexeyev returned from injury, but with Pickering, Phil Kemp, Sebastian Aho and Finn Harding all unavailable, WBS needed to rely on ECHL callups in Emil Pieniniemi and David Breazeale in an elimination game.<\/p>\n

Wilkes took a lead early in the period, a very nice pass from Avery Hayes setup Aidan McDonough for a power play goal.<\/p>\n

Ultimately it would be the final goal of the WBS season. Toronto\u2019s Easton Cowan scored in the second period to tie the game, leaving the teams clinging to that 1-1 battle for a large portion of the night.<\/p>\n

In overtime, it was former Penguin (and WBS Penguin) Alex Nylander delivering the goal to end the series and send Toronto to the Calder Cup Final.<\/p>\n

In the end, it wasn\u2019t meant to be for WBS, and their season comes to an end as a result. They had some chances, including Tanner Howe getting a great look just a minute <\/a>prior to Nylander ending the game. The opponent had something to do with the outcome as well, have to give credit to them. Toronto was a very well-coached team playing a 1-1-3 neutral zone trap that was difficult to fight through to earn quality scoring chances (not to be confused with the high number of shot total that Wilkes usually ended up with). The Marlies got great goaltending along the way from Artur Akhtyamov and had some savvy vets who could pop out and make WBS pay at key moments. That all contributed.<\/p>\n

The team would probably not blame the injury situation, but there\u2019s no doubt that played into things. It\u2019s hard, if not impossible, to win a playoff series with four of a team\u2019s top six or seven defensemen all hurt by the end of it. And yet, the Pens only conceded two goals in almost 74 minutes in Game 6, a testament to Sergei Murashov (37 saves on 39 shots for the game) and their team will to keep battling.<\/p>\n

In the end, WBS fell short and their season is over. In the wider picture, there\u2019s much to be proud of for the players and see a lot of promise for the future.<\/p>\n

In all, that\u2019s a wrap on the 2025-26 WBS Penguins team. They fall a little short of the promised land, which is a big shame for an organization that has never won a Calder Cup. While they will benefit in the years to come from what Pittsburgh hopes is a continuing stream of talented young players, the immediate future probably won\u2019t be as bright for WBS next year if they have to deal with the immediate or eventual NHL graduations of players like Murashov, Brunicke, McGroarty, Hayes, Broz and Koivunen. One way or another, this was sort of the crest of the wave for this mini-generation of those prospects, a trough could follow before the next batch gears all the way up again. It\u2019s never a fun ending to come up short, but this team has a lot for the organization to be proud of both on individual and overall areas of growth and achievement following this AHL season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Wilkes-Barre\/Scranton Penguins hit the end of the line in the 2026 Calder Cup playoffs last night, dropping…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":594147,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5113],"tags":[5,4,118,1469,100,5216,38449],"class_list":["post-594146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh-penguins","tag-hockey","tag-nhl","tag-penguins","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-penguins","tag-pittsburghpenguins","tag-wbs-weekly"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116714853221712609","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/594146","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=594146"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/594146\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/594147"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=594146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=594146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=594146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}