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Playoff picture coming into focus with one week remaining

April 11, 2005 - American Hockey League (AHL) News Release


SPRINGFIELD, Mass. ... Four postseason spots remain up for grabs as the American Hockey League enters the final week of its 69th regular season.

Providence, Hamilton, Cincinnati and Houston are on the brink of qualifying heading into the home stretch, but there are still several important games on tap.

Worcester is five points back in the Atlantic with a home-and-home against the Bruins upcoming this weekend. In the North, Syracuse is eight points behind the Bulldogs with four games left, beginning with a trip to Copps Coliseum on Wednesday. And in the West, Grand Rapids is five points off the pace, but could sneak into the postseason by winning its final four games, including two meetings with the Mighty Ducks.

Rochester has wrapped up the Sam Pollock Trophy as the North Division champions for 2004-05, but in the other races, three defending division champions are all looking up at the top spot.

Manchester has a four-point edge over Hartford in the Atlantic Division, with a head-to-head battle set for Wednesday night. The Wolf Pack won the Emile Francis Trophy in 2004; the Monarchs are looking to get over the hump after three straight second-place finishes.

In the East, Philadelphia captured the F.G. (Teddy) Oke Trophy last season, but Binghamton is three points up on the Phantoms, on the brink of its second division title in three years.

And in the West, the John D. Chick Trophy resided in Milwaukee in 2004, but the Chicago has a four-point lead on the Admirals as the Wolves vie for their first AHL division crown.

The 2005 Calder Cup Playoffs will begin on Tuesday night, with 16 teams in the hunt for the American Hockey League championship.


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OTHER RACES DOWN TO WIRE, TOO ... Manchester's Mike Cammalleri is on his way to winning the Willie Marshall Award as the AHL's top goal-scorer, with 45 goals heading into the final week... Cammalleri trails Binghamton's Jason Spezza by seven points in the race for the John Sollenberger Trophy as the overall scoring champion... Hartford has all but wrapped up the Harry "Hap" Holmes Award for team goaltending, and could become the first team in 15 years to boast the AHL's two top-ranked netminders.


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THE TIES THAT BIND ... Following are the tiebreaking procedures used in the event of a tie in the standings following the completion of the regular season on Sunday. When a tie among three or more teams is broken resulting in a two-team tie, the original tiebreaking method is used.

Between two teams:
a) wins
b) points in season series between teams
c) goal differential
d) goals scored in season series between teams
e) intraconference points percentage

Among three or more teams:
a) wins
b) points percentage in combined season series
c) goal differential
d) goal differential in combined season series
e) intraconference points percentage


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OFF THE ICE ... Norfolk and Philadelphia both donated a portion of their ticket sales from Friday night's games to local American Cancer Society Relay for Life 2005 efforts... The Admirals dedicated that night's contest against Albany to the memory of Marla Bender, the wife of team trainer Stu Bender, who succumbed to cancer last year.


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ETC. ... Denis Hamel (36), Brandon Bochenski (32), Jason Spezza (32) and Josh Langfeld (31) have made Binghamton the first team since Albany in 1998-99 with four 30-goal scorers... Spezza has recorded 32 points (7g, 25a) and a plus-17 rating during his current 18-game scoring streak, the longest in the AHL since 1997-98 (Steve Guolla, 19 games)... Cincinnati's Frederic Cassivi has posted back-to-back-to-back shutouts for the second time this season, and is just the third goalie in AHL history to record at least 10 shutouts in a season, joining Jason LaBarbera (2003-04) and Maxime Ouellet (2003-04)... Wilkes-Barre/Scranton knocked Hershey from playoff contention by beating the Bears twice over the weekend, scoring two third-period goals for 3-2 wins both Friday and Sunday... Chris Bourque, the son of Hockey Hall of Fame defenseman Ray Bourque, signed an amateur try-out contract with Portland last week and picked up his first professional point with an assist on Sunday... Binghamton's Brian McGrattan has set a new AHL record with 544 penalty minutes this season... Lowell's 3-1 win on Friday was its first in Providence since Mar. 27, 2001, snapping a 14-game winless streak (0-13-1) at the Dunkin' Donuts Center... Albany's seven-game winning streak, which ended on Sunday, matched the team's longest since a 10-game run in February 1998... Hamilton is 10-2-1-1 in its last 14 games... Manchester went a combined 19-0-0-1 this season against Springfield and Portland, the bottom two teams in the Atlantic Division... For the first time in AHL history, five teams have topped 100 points in the standings in the same season... The AHL should surpass its all-time attendance record of 6,366,996 on Tuesday evening.

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