The only AHL game tonight featured Bridgeport’s once and future division rival Wilkes-Barre/Scranton’s season finale. Manchester scored two first-period goals (Sean Backman had an assist) and withstood Conor Sheary’s second-period goal to beat the Penguins 2-1 and finish off the series in five. The Monarchs, off to California whenever this season ends, move on to the conference finals, awaiting either Hershey or Hartford.
The other three series are all in action Wednesday night, coincidentally three different games: Grand Rapids-Rockford Game 3, Utica-OKC Game 4, Hershey-Hartford Game 5.
Jack Eichel scored with 28.5 seconds left in overtime to beat Slovakia 5-4 in a feisty, see-saw game and give the United States first place in Pool B at the World Championship. Anders Lee (goal/assist) scored to make it 3-0 early in the second (Mark Arcobello had an assist on the first one), but then Slovakia scored four in a row before the USA tied it on Charlie Coyle’s late-second-period goal.
Nick Bonino left early with some kind of apparent arm injury. Haven’t seen anything about his availability for Thursday’s quarterfinal, which, because the Americans won the pool, is against Switzerland (9 a.m., NBCSN). The Belarus-USA game tells you there are no gimmes in this tournament, and the Americans’ potential semifinal just cinches it: After Finland beat Russia today in a shootout in the last game of the round robin, Russia finished third in the pool. It faces Sweden in the quarterfinals with the winner to get the United States.
Belarus held on to beat Norway and take fourth in Pool B and earn a date with Canada. If “earn” is the right word there. (Well, similarly crazy things have happened with Belarus.)
The other drama was relegation from Pool A, and that sequence of events we talked about last night that would relegate Austria? Happened. France beat Latvia in a shootout; Austria lost more than handily to Canada. Austria gets sent back.
The only game of Tuesday’s six that didn’t mean anything for seeding was a Czech shootout win over Switzerland.