Stunned! Firebirds watch two-goal lead evaporate, lose Calder Cup to Bears in OT

Nearly four years to the day of the initial announcement that a new American Hockey League team and arena would call the Coachella Valley home, that team came within an eyelash of finishing its inaugural season with a championship.

Instead, the Coachella Valley Firebirds will have to settle for runner-up.

The Firebirds held a two-goal lead in front of a sold-out crowd of 10,087 in Game 7 of the Calder Cup Finals on Wednesday night. Coachella Valley was fewer than 40 minutes from a Calder Cup title.

But the Hershey Bears crawled back, scoring one goal, then a second to force overtime for the third time this series. This overtime ended the same as the other two, with the Bears scoring the walk-off goal — this time in a 3-2 win.

Mike Vecchione's goal with 3:42 remaining in the first overtime quieted a stunned crowd inside Acrisure Arena, ending the Firebirds' unimaginable and unforgettable season. In the blink of an eye, a season that once seemed likely to end with a championship was over.

"We've been through a lot as a group and as a team," Firebirds head coach Dan Bylsma said. "I just love these guys and it's sad to see it end this way."

Firebirds players were not made available after the game but are expected to speak with media later this week.

This season, the Firebirds set AHL records by playing 26 games and winning four winner-take-all games in one postseason. They also broke the single postseason home attendance record earlier in these playoffs.

The Firebirds had won 13 walk-off games this season, including two in the postseason. One was a triple-overtime thriller in Game 3 of the Pacific Division Finals versus the Calgary Wranglers and the other came in Game 5 of the same series to end Calgary's season.

On Wednesday, the Firebirds were, for the third time in five games, on the opposite end of a walk-off goal. It was a devastating way to end the season, after winning the first two games of the final series.

Coachella Valley opened the series by being the first team since 1939 to post back-to-back shutout wins in a Calder Cup Finals. They held a 2-0 lead in the best-of-seven series and would need to lose four of the next five games to lose the series.

They flew to Hershey, Pennsylvania for Game 3, only to lose 5-4 in overtime. In Game 4 in Hershey, the Bears won 3-2, and in Game 5 Hershey won, 1-0, in overtime.

The Firebirds staved off elimination in Game 6, with a convincing 5-2 win. That set the stage for what would be the first overtime in a Game 7 of a Calder Cup Final since 1953, when Bob Chrystal scored the only goal to give the Cleveland Barons a 1-0 Cup-clinching victory over the Pittsburgh Hornets.

The win was Hershey's first in a Game 7 since the 2016 Atlantic Division Finals, prevailing over the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins 3-2 in overtime. Hershey won its first Calder Cup championship since 2010 and league-leading 12th overall.

For the first part of the game, the Firebirds made it seem as though the Bears would go home still looking for their latest Game 7 win. Rookie defenseman Ryker Evans gave the Firebirds the early lead, four minutes and 41 seconds into the game, on a rebound shot. Andrew Poturalski and Jesper Frödén assisted on the play.

The Firebirds, who had been 10-0 in the postseason when leading at the first intermission, took the one-score lead into the second period. Just 24 seconds into the second period, captain Max McCormick found the back of the net to extend the lead to 2-0. The home crowd raged.

"Boy, there's probably going to be three, four, five opportunities to extend that lead to 3-0 in that second period there," Bylsma said. "There's five or six. Their goalie made the saves. They got a power play opportunity and got the power play goal to get back in the game."

Hershey head coach Todd Nelson said that one of those saves by Bears netminder Hunter Shepard was the turning point in the game.

"It gave us life," Nelson said, "and we we're able to pop a couple in."

Hershey's first goal came on a power play by Connor McMichael late in the second period. Then, at the 17:09 mark of the second, Hendrix Lapierre flipped the puck past Firebirds goaltender Joey Daccord to even the score and incite boos from the rabid home crowd.

Suddenly, a two-goal Firebirds lead was gone and the two teams entered the second intermission tied, 2-2.

In the third period, Coachella Valley killed two penalties to stay alive and force overtime. Bylsma said that his team needed a break to regroup. They we no longer playing their game.

"We couldn't get the game back," Bylsma said. "They were coming pretty hard, with the power play and right after the power play."

As if there was no other way the third period could have gone, the entire 20 minutes was a roller coaster of emotion from the home crowd. Each of the Bears' nine shots on goal and the penalty the Firebirds had to kill were enough to cause heart palpitations. The Firebirds managed just four shots on goal in the period, with each one bringing the crowd to its feet in anticipation, followed by a collective exhale.

Though Coachella Valley had a 5-on-4 mismatch on Hershey with a power play in overtime, they were unable to break through for a third goal despite 47 shots on goal in the game. Shepard, the Bears' goalie, allowed 14 goals in the first three games of the series inside Acrisure Arena, but didn't allow any over the final 55 minutes of Game 7. Shepard's 45 saves in the game were 12 more than his previous postseason high this season.

The Firebirds just needed to get one shot past Shepard in overtime to win a championship, but they were unable to do it.

On the other end of the ice, despite three fewer shots in overtime, the Bears put several quality shots on Daccord, who finished the game with 35 saves.

"I thought that in overtime we had a couple chances," Bylsma said. "We had the power play opportunity in overtime and there's your chance, there's your opportunity to win the game with special teams. We had a couple chances, we had two really good looks in that power play and we didn't come up with it."

The Firebirds, who had an 11-3 record in playoff games when they scored on the power play, had just two opportunities to do so Wednesday. The were 0-for-2.

Nelson said that he wasn't overly surprised that his team overcame a two-goal deficit in a Game 7 on the road. He said that the group is the most tight-knit he's ever coached and that the Bears' roster is "like a brotherhood."

Bylsma expressed similar feelings about his group. That this talented Firebirds' team, which began the season with 22 consecutive games away from home while their arena was being completed, had become so close and cohesive over the course of 98 games this season had to make this loss all the more painful.

This team, in its first year, just four years after being conceptualized, came as close as a team can get without winning a championship.

"Speaking from experience," Bylsma said, "this loss in Game 7 will not leave me for a long time. But the work, the commitment, the sacrifice, the effort to compete that this group of guys, this team, has put in throughout the whole year will also stick with me for a long time."

Andrew John covers the Coachella Valley Firebirds for The Desert Sun and the USA TODAY Network. Email him at andrew.john@desertsun.com.

This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Calder Cup Finals: Hershey Bears beat Firebirds to win Calder Cup