The Firebirds are moving forward Shane Wright he was fully engaged in work yesterday at the Giant Centre.
Wright, the fourth overall pick in the 2022 NHL Draft, missed the entire Western Conference Finals against Milwaukee with an injury in Game 3 of the team’s final against Ontario on May 17. He has two goals to go along with three assists in six playoff games. games.
“We got a good time off,” the Firebirds head coach Dan Bylsma said after practice. “[Wright] he was pushing to come back in Games 4 and 5 of the last series, and he was close. You see him skating there a few days ago with us, too [he] he looks comfortable out there, and hopefully we can get him on the roster.”
Named to the 2023-24 AHL Top Prospects team yesterday, Wright finished with 47 points (22 goals, 25 assists) in 59 games during the regular season. He also won eight games with the Seattle Kraken and posted four goals and an assist.
Said Wright, “I hate watching sports. Any athlete can relate to that. He always wants to play, so he’ll definitely motivate me to get out there.”
After finishing the Western Conference Finals in Milwaukee last Saturday, the Firebirds headed straight to Hershey.
Bylsma said the plan was created. With the outcome of the Eastern Conference series still in doubt at the time, the Firebirds chose to go to Hershey and stay in the eastern half of the country rather than fly back to the West Coast and wait out the rest of the matchup between the Bears. and Monsters. Had Cleveland won, the Firebirds would have returned home to host Game 1.
They make the most of this week. Along with the work done on the ice, the coaching staff took over Games 6 and 7 at the Giant Center. To separate the week from the players, the team rented a vacation home about 45 minutes from Hershey. The players worked together there to prepare a team dinner, went fishing and got to explore the Pennsylvania outdoors. The home also has a sauna and cold tub, and the itinerary includes watching Game 2 of the Stanley Cup Final.
“I think it was a really productive week,” Andrew Poturalski, two-time Calder Cup champion, said. “We used a lot. It was a unique situation, but we were happy, and now we are ready to go.”
Bylsma and Hershey head coach Todd Nelson has a Calder Cup history that dates back 30 years.
As players, they met in the finals in 1994 when Nelson’s Portland Pirates defeated Bylsma and the Moncton Hawks in six games.
They then met as assistant coaches in 2008, with Nelson and the Chicago Wolves winning the Calder Cup against Bylsma and the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins.
Then last spring, they met as head coaches in the classic seven-game series between the Bears and Firebirds.
“Nelly’s a guy that I knew a lot personally when we played, and he was in Grand Rapids and in the summer in Grand Rapids,” said Bylsma, a West Michigan native. “[We] you played summer hockey together, the occasional round of golf, and more.
“He is strong in every situation so far I have come across him. Of course I know that, but this is not about Nelly no [me]. Good luck, and we’ll be shaking hands (at the end of the series) somehow.”
Nelson did not have an immediate update on the defender Vincent Iorio after game 7 of the Eastern Conference Finals.
Iorio left midway through the game and didn’t return, and Hershey’s blue line was already lacking in veterans. Lucas Johansen again Aaron Ness. To add to the roster, the Bears added a defenseman Colin Swoyer from South Carolina, their ECHL affiliate, on Thursday. Swoyer, 26, played in four regular season games with the Bears and had three assists. He also played 36 games with Wilkes-Barre/Scranton last season and registered a goal and 10 assists.
In a quick turnaround in the middle of the series, the Bears opted to rest yesterday.
The Eastern Conference Finals between Hershey and Cleveland was the most attended series in Calder Cup Playoff history.
Attendance was 80,467 fans for the seven games between the Giant Center and Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse. Cleveland ended its last season’s streak with 12,233 fans over seven home games, an AHL single-season record.
The previous record was held by the Bears and Manitoba Moose, who drew 77,038 fans to the six-game Calder Cup Finals in 2009.
― with files from Patrick Williams
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