In a lot of ways, the American Hockey League’s Springfield Thunderbirds are a lot like their NHL big brother, the St. Louis Blues.
The only difference, at least this season, is that one was able to overcome a slow start and the other didn’t.
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When the Thunderbirds (32-32-6-2) open their first-round series in the Calder Cup Playoffs against the Charlotte Checkers on Wednesday in a best-of-3 series in Charlotte (6 p.m. CT), nobody would could have foreseen in October that the T-birds would be in this position.
Not after starting the season 2-10-4-2 and sinking to the bottom of the Atlantic Division at the time. But here they are, the Blues’ AHL affiliate stocked with the team’s prospects are in the tournament, and although they have to play all three games (if necessary) away from home, they’re glad to be in the position that they’re in all things considered.
“Things transitioned really quick for this group and I’m really proud of this group,” said Springfield coach Steve Ott, who started this season as an associate coach to Jim Montgomery in St. Louis and brought up to Springfield to replace the fired Steve Konowalchuk on Jan. 19. “They believed from the get-go of the process of how we’re going to play, and we kind of took it day by day. The practice habits and details continued to get better and you could see it transitioned into our game. We picked up a lot of valuable points along the way and kind of grew into a team to kind of get into this situation.”
Springfield was starting to dig itself out of the doldrums of a really poor start and were 14-18-4-2 at the time of Ott’s arrival and finished 18-14-2-0 under him. But the change seemed to reinvigorate what was starting out as a long season and finished off as an entrant into the tournament, which is where Springfield felt it belonged all along.
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“It wasn’t what I saw, it was more the things I believed in as a coach and used some past experience that I thought could really help this group out,” Ott said. “Getting the buy-in from the leaders early, helping develop all our young guys, to see them play a pro game in which I really believe in I thought really helped them and instrumental into their own success, but it also led to team success, which was even better. You add all those elements together, I thought the guys were very hungry for information early. We pushed from practice and kind of started building it from there. Very excited to be in this opportunity for this group.
“I think we got great leadership down here with (captain) Chris Wagner, [Hugh] McGing, you’ve got Calle Rosen who we are obviously familiar with the Blues and Dillon Dube.”
A number of Blues prospects have made major contributions, but perhaps none other than Aleksanteri Kaskimaki, a third-round pick in the 2022 NHL Draft who ended the season with 17 points (seven goals, 10 assists) in 15 games.
Kaskimaki had a five-game stint with the Blues earlier in the season (zero points) and was basically told by Blues general manager Doug Armstrong to go back down and to find his scoring; he finished with 44 points (20 goals, 24 assists) in 64 games.
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“Finding your scoring comes with different opportunity, I would say,” Ott said. “Being set up for success to be put in that and using his God-given ability. He’s been put on a top line with Dube and Wagner and they’ve had great chemistry. All three of them play the game the right way and they’re getting rewarded offensively by not only being offensive but from checking, and when they’re checking their offense back, ‘Kasky’s been able to use his skill level to really take the next step. Power play situations where you really start to learn that he’s a real deceptive passer and he continues to put up numbers by going to the harder areas, driving the net off the rush where he got rewarded in the Lehigh (Valley) game (a 7-1 win last Wednesday that clinched a playoff berth).
“There’s areas of his game that just continue to develop and for a young player to be put in those opportunities, he’s been one of them to really grab it.”
The uniqueness of the series is that all three games will be played in Charlotte, with Game 2 slated for Friday, and a Game 3 (if necessary) set for Saturday. All three game times are 6 p.m. (CT). The Thunderbirds lost six of the eight matchups against the Checkers, the affiliate of the Florida Panthers but the last two games (a 5-1 Springfield win on Feb. 28 and 3-2 overtime loss on Feb. 27) resemble more of what Springfield has been playing like.
“We’re up against it. There’s no other way of putting it in any other terms,” Ott said. “… Coaching staff and I have been preparing our game plan. They have a more of a veteran-based team, a lot of high-end players that are kind of players in between NHL age and AHL. For us, we’ve been playing meaningful hockey and playoff-type hockey for weeks on end now, maybe even months to be in this situation. i really like where our game is at. I think we have a very competitive group and we want to make some noise. We’re going to push as hard as we can here, continue to play the way that we’ve identified our team, our team identity, and we’re going to see what we can match up against. … We’re hoping for a great matchup and hopefully bring some home games back to Springfield.”
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A Springfield series win would put it into the Atlantic Division semifinal series against top-seeded Providence. Springfield enters the postseason as the sixth seed, Charlotte as the third seed.
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