The 2026 Calder Cup Finals begin tonight at Allstate Arena (8 ET, 
Sportsnet 360, NHL Network Radio) with Game 1 between two clubs that have made improbable runs to get here.
The Chicago Wolves finished 11th in the AHL standings in the regular season, while the Toronto Marlies came in 15th. But both earned their conference championships by knocking off some elite opponents.
Chicago’s run to their sixth Calder Cup Finals game included a 51-point, 107-point victory over Grand Rapids, followed by a Western Conference Finals victory that saw them travel to Colorado and win Games 6 and 7 at hostile Blue FCU Arena.
Bradley Nadeau (5-9-14), Ryan Suzuki (5-8-13) and Justin Robidas (6-6-12) are Chicago’s best playoff hitters. Felix Unger Sörum (3-6-9) paced the Wolves with 66 points in the regular season, but missed the last five games due to injury.
Amir Miftakhov (2-0, 2.36, .940) started Games 6 and 7 of the conference finals at Colorado in place of injury Cayden Primeau (8-6, 2.58, .919) and stopped 75 of 80 shots. Miftakhov was reinstated as Carolina’s emergency third baseman last night after Brandon Bussi again Pyotr Kochetkov.
The Wolves, the 2022 Calder Cup champions, are looking for their second title during their partnership with the Carolina Hurricanes. The Canes saw their hopes win the title again when they teamed up with the Charlotte Checkers in 2019. And with Carolina up 3-2 in the Stanley Cup Finals, they could become the first organization to win both cups in the same season since the New Jersey Devils and Albany River Rats in 1995.
Toronto, a .500 team at Christmas that finished fourth in the North Division, went a long way to knock off Rochester in the first round. They came from behind in the third period of Game 5’s winners in Laval and Cleveland and took both series. They also swept a six-game conference final against a 101-point Wilkes-Barre/Scranton team, winning twice in overtime and taking all three road games.
“We have a great group of guys,” the Marlies general manager Ryan Hardy said. “At this level the goal is always to, first and foremost, create the best environment you can to develop the players. Once we got going, we hit the ground running.”
Marlies ahead Vinnie Lettieri (8-9-17) is tied for the league lead in scoring this postseason, and the captain Logan Shaw (7-8-15) and rookie Easton Cowan (7-6-13) scored seven goals each. The protector William Villeneuve (2-14-16) saw a seven-game hitting streak end in the series finale against Wilkes-Barre/Scranton.
on the net, Artur Akhtyamov (11-6, 2.12, .927) has made 15 straight starts, and stopped 71 of 73 shots in the last two conference finals games.
Quick Highlights:
- Spiros Anastaswho took over as Wolves coach on Dec. 12, won the Calder Cup as a Grand Rapids assistant in 2013. That was also the most recent year the team reached the Calder Cup finals following a midseason coaching change — the Griffins’ rival, the Syracuse Crunch, saw it. Rob Zettler give back John Cooper following Cooper’s promotion to Tampa Bay.
- Chicago’s power play is running at 24.5 percent in the playoffs (13-for-53), while Toronto is right behind it at 23.2 percent (16-for-69).
- The Wolves and Marlies split four meetings in 2025-26. This is the first time since 2007 (Hamilton vs. Hershey) that the Calder Cup finalists have met in the regular season.
- The teams from Chicago and Toronto met for a professional hockey tournament for the first time since the 1962 Stanley Cup Final, which was won in six games by the Maple Leafs over the Hawks.
