The Abbotsford Canucks have gone on one heck of a run in the Calder Cup Playoffs.
The Vancouver Canucks’ AHL affiliate took down the Pacific-winning Colorado Eagles on Monday, winning 5-to-0 in the winner-take-all fifth game of the best-of-five series. Now, the Canucks will head into the Western Conference Finals, where they’ll face the Texas Stars in a best-of-seven series, with the winner moving on to the Calder Cup Finals to face either the Laval Rocket or Charlotte Checkers.
The run has featured some standout performances from Canucks prospects.
Arturs Silovs has posted four shutouts in the playoffs, three of them coming in each of the Canucks’ three series-clinching games. Linus Karlsson has a share of the playoff lead in goalscoring, with 7 goals in 12 games. And Victor Mancini has been a force to be reckoned with at both ends of the ice, even if his scoring — 5 points in 12 games — doesn’t quite capture his impact.
There are all sorts of positives to this run. It’s great for fan interest in Abbotsford, it’s a reputation-maker for Manny Malhotra as a head coach, and it’s great experience for the Canucks’ prospects, not to mention the pursuit of the Calder Cup is worthwhile on its own merits.
But what does it mean for the Vancouver Canucks?
Do Calder Cups lead to Stanley Cups?
In theory, the Canucks’ AHL affiliate going on a deep run into the playoffs should herald future success at the NHL level. The team’s prospects ought to gain valuable experience and confidence from such a run, potentially propelling them to similar success in the NHL.
That’s something Jim Rutherford and Patrik Allvin have preached since taking over the team: building a strong AHL affiliate that can feed the NHL team.
The Canucks saw the fruit of that this past season, to a certain extent. AHL call-ups like Aatu Räty, Max Sasson, and Elias Pettersson showed up ready to contribute at the NHL level after their time spent in Abbotsford.
But does success in the Calder Cup Playoffs lead to future success in the Stanley Cup Playoffs? Well, yes and no.
Back in the nineties, an AHL team winning the Calder Cup was a great sign for its parent affiliate in the NHL.
Of the ten teams that won the Calder Cup in the nineties, five of them went on to play in a Stanley Cup Final within the next five years, with three of them winning the Stanley Cup: the Detroit Red Wings (Adirondack Red Wings), New Jersey Devils (Albany River Rats), and Colorado Avalanche (Hershey Bears).
That’s a decent success rate. While correlation does not mean causation, the AHL and NHL teams in the same organization experiencing that kind of success in that short span of time suggests they were doing something right.
Since then, however, things have not gone quite so well for the parent teams of Calder Cup winners.
Is it better to lose the Calder Cup?
The last team to win a Stanley Cup within five years of their AHL Affiliate winning the Calder Cup was the Avalanche in 1997. Since then, of 25 Calder Cup winners, just three have seen their parent club go on to the Stanley Cup Final within five years, though the Carolina Hurricanes could make that four this year with a miraculous comeback against the Florida Panthers.
It’s actually worse than that, however.
If we take the 20 Calder Cup winners from 2000 to 2019, 15 of their parent clubs never even made it out of the second round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs within five years. Eight of them never made it out of the first round. Three of them did not qualify for the Stanley Cup Playoffs at all.
In other words, winning the Calder Cup has not led to success at the NHL level in the last couple of decades.
Losing in the Calder Cup Final, on the other hand, has a much better track record.
Since 2004, five teams that have made it to the Calder Cup Final and lost have seen their parent clubs go on to win the Stanley Cup, with three others making it to the Stanley Cup Final and losing.
To be fair, this double counts the Pittsburgh Penguins’ 2009 Stanley Cup, which qualifies for the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins losing the Calder Cup Final in both 2004 and 2008.
Here are the NHL teams who went to a Stanley Cup Final within five years of their AHL affiliate finishing as runner-up in the Calder Cup Playoffs :
- Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins (2004, 2008) -> Pittsburgh Penguins (2009)
- Manitoba Moose (2009) -> Vancouver Canucks (2011, lost)
- Syracuse Crunch (2013) -> Tampa Bay Lightning (2015, lost)
- Hershey Bears (2016) -> Washington Capitals (2018)
- Syracuse Crunch (2017) -> Tampa Bay Lightning (2020, 2021)
- Texas Stars (2018) -> Dallas Stars (2020, lost)
- Chicago Wolves (2019) -> Vegas Golden Knights (2023)
So, does this mean Canucks fans should be rooting for Abbotsford to get to the Calder Cup Final and lose? Maybe. But it’s not that simple.
Canucks 2011 playoff run helped by former AHLers
We can look at past runs by the Canucks’ AHL affiliates to see how much or how little a run can mean.
The 2004-05 Manitoba Moose made it to the Calder Cup semifinals before being swept by the Chicago Wolves. While that team didn’t make it to the finals, that Moose roster was littered with future Canucks, most notably Ryan Kesler, Alex Burrows, and Kevin Bieksa, who played major roles in the Canucks’ 2011 run to the Stanley Cup Final, six years later.
The 2008-09 Moose went further, getting to the Calder Cup Final before falling to the Hershey Bears. A handful of skaters from that roster played games for the Canucks, but none of note.
The goaltender from that run, on the other hand, was very notable: Cory Schneider, who played in five games in the 2011 playoff run for the Canucks, then battled Roberto Luongo for the number-one role before getting traded to the New Jersey Devils.
Then there’s the 2014-15 Utica Comets, who also made the Calder Cup Final, losing to the Manchester Monarchs. Again, few skaters from that group did much in the NHL for the Canucks, with Sven Baertschi the most notable, though Alex Biega went on to a long stint as the Canucks’ seventh defenceman.
Once again, the goaltender from that run had the biggest impact with the Canucks, as Jacob Markstrom went on to become the team’s number-one goaltender, and was solid in his one trip to the Stanley Cup Playoffs with Vancouver, posting a .919 save percentage in 2020.
So, one deep run in the Calder Cup Playoffs led to a bevy of Canucks who played a key role for a deep run in the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Two other deep runs gave the Canucks two goaltenders and not much more.
Five or six years from now, will Canucks fans look back at this run and see the starting point for future Canucks stars like Arturs Silovs, Jonathan Lekkerimäki, and Victor Mancini? Or will this run amount to little of note for the Canucks at the NHL level?
