The Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins were three wins away from reaching the conference finals for the first time in 12 years, but a Cinderella Springfield Thunderbirds stymied their progress as the best-of-five Atlantic Division finals begin tonight at Mohegan Sun Arena (7:05 ET, 
).
The Penguins beat Hershey 3-1 in the series after scoring 101 points in the regular season, with 16 different skaters scoring at least one point. koivuning town (1-3-4) and Tristan Broz (0-4-4) led the offense with four points apiece, Sergei Murashov (3-1, 1.99, .937) Allowed eight goals on 126 shots in the series.
defensive player Harrison BrunickThe shorthanded goal in Game 4 was the decisive goal in last Thursday night’s series decider.
“This is probably the funniest thing I’ve ever had,” said Brunick, who turned 20 last week. “This is a great team and we have a chance to do something special here.”
Brunik, a 2024 second-round draft pick, played nine games for Pittsburgh and five games for Wilkes-Barre/Scranton before returning to Kamloops (WHL) after winning a bronze medal with Team Canada at the 2026 IIHF World Junior Championship. In April, he was assigned back to the AHL club after his junior season.
“Kyle (Pittsburgh general manager) has something Kyle Dubas), Spezz (General Manager, Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Jason Spezza), everyone told me I needed to do something to improve my game,” Brunik added. “I feel good about my game and it’s still improving from here.
The Penguins reached the conference finals for the first time since 2016, winning three of four regular-season games against Springfield and leading the Thunderbirds by 29 points in the Atlantic Division. But the T-Birds have proven that none of that matters.
Springfield allowed eight goals in Game 1 of its first-round series against Charlotte and a total of nine goals in the six games since. Georgi Romanov (5-1, 1.42, .954) shutout Thursday with 37 saves, Dillon Dube (2-3-5) scored a key goal in overtime to defeat the regular season champion Bruins 1-0.
“We discussed this six weeks ago,” head coach Steve Ott he said in his postgame address to the team after knocking off Providence. “In order for us to continue this process, we have to get better every day. What I absolutely love is that we just killed a giant. I told you a few months ago that we were a good hockey team, and we’re just now starting to prove that to other people.”
