The Syracuse Crunch finished second in the AHL North Division with 89 points and entered the Calder Cup playoffs as the No. 2 seed. Cleveland eliminated them 3-1 in a best-of-five semifinal that ended with a 107:53 marathon at Upstate Medical University Arena.
Truth-check: Frank Mahoney, Editor-in-Chief.
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The puck crossed the goal line at 7:53 of the third overtime period on Sunday, May 3, and a Syracuse season that lasted 75 games and seven months ended in a single instant. Zach Aston-Reese, a Cleveland Monsters winger who grew up in suburban Pittsburgh, beat goaltender Brandon Halverson to send the Crunch home from the 2026 Calder Cup playoffs and the Monsters into the North Division Finals. The official length of the contest was 107 minutes and 53 seconds of hockey, the longest game in the 32-year history of the Syracuse Crunch franchise. Halverson made 56 saves on 58 shots in the loss, his second straight start of more than 30 saves.
For a team that came one point short of winning the North Division in the regular season, the way the season ended felt cruel. The Crunch had outshot the Monsters in three of the four games of the series. They had killed off every Cleveland power play in Game 2. They had Matteo Pietroniro on the board at 6:21 of the first period in Game 4 and the building loud. None of it mattered after Aston-Reese’s shot beat Halverson late in the third extra session.
The 2025-26 record
The Crunch closed the 72-game American Hockey League regular season with 41 wins, 24 regulation losses, three overtime losses and four shootout losses, good for 89 points. That total finished one point behind the Laval Rocket, the Montreal Canadiens affiliate, who claimed the North Division crown with 90 points. Syracuse scored 237 goals and allowed 189, a goal differential of plus-48 that ranked among the better marks in the Eastern Conference.
Cleveland, the team that ended Syracuse’s season, finished third in the division with 83 points. The Toronto Marlies were fourth at 82 points, and the Rochester Americans took fifth at 72 points. All seven North Division teams played the standard 72-game schedule, and the top four advanced to the Calder Cup playoffs.
Syracuse opened the season at home on Oct. 18 against the Rochester Americans in the home opener presented by Upstate Medical University Hospital, the same sponsor whose name now sits on the arena facade. The 72-game schedule featured 36 home dates, including 16 Saturday games and 12 Friday games, a calendar built to maximize weekend gate.
Here is one way to measure the season. The Pythagorean expectation, a formula borrowed from baseball analytics and adapted to hockey using goals for and goals against squared, gives a probabilistic win rate based on goal differential. Plug in Syracuse’s 237 goals for and 189 against, square each, and the result is a Pythagorean winning percentage of about .611. Multiplied across a 72-game schedule, that projects to roughly 44 wins. The Crunch finished with 41. By that measure, Syracuse fell about three wins short of what their underlying numbers said they should have produced. Some of that gap shows up in the shootout record. Four shootout losses leave four extra points sitting on the table that the Pythagorean model treats as wins-by-other-means.
Who’s leading the Crunch
The Syracuse offense ran through Jakob Pelletier all year. The 25-year-old left winger, claimed off waivers from the Calgary Flames before the season, finished with 28 goals and 49 assists for 77 points in 63 games, leading the AHL in scoring on a points-per-game basis among players with at least 50 games. Pelletier was named the team’s player of the regular season in an internal vote, and he opened the playoffs with three points in Game 2 against Cleveland, his first three-point playoff game since February 2024.
Dylan Duke, the 22-year-old former Michigan center, supplied the goal scoring. Duke scored 32 goals in 72 games, including 18 on the power play, the highest power-play goal total on the team. He scored the first Syracuse goal of the playoff series at 1:51 of the second period in Game 1 in Cleveland.
Conor Geekie, the prized prospect Tampa Bay acquired in the 2024 Mikhail Sergachev trade with Utah, made his AHL debut count. Geekie posted 17 goals and 42 assists for 59 points in 57 games before Tampa Bay recalled him for the NHL playoffs on April 19, the day after the AHL regular season ended.
Mitchell Chaffee, the veteran power forward, and Nick Abruzzese, the former Harvard captain, filled out the top six. Chaffee finished with 57 points in 54 games and Abruzzese added 51 points in 56 games. Both were Lightning two-way contracts who split time between Syracuse and Tampa during the year.
In goal, Brandon Halverson handled the heavy share of the workload. Halverson went 24-11-6 with a 2.42 goals-against average and a .905 save percentage across 43 regular season appearances. His 56-save effort in the Game 4 triple-overtime loss was the highest single-game save total of his AHL career.
The franchise leadership pieces were both first-year fits. Defenseman Steven Santini was named captain on October 10, 2025, replacing Gabriel Dumont, who retired after the 2024-25 season. The alternates were forwards Boris Katchouk, Scott Sabourin and Jakob Pelletier and defenseman Declan Carlile. Joel Bouchard, hired as head coach on June 26, 2023, added general manager duties on July 7, 2025, becoming the only person in the Lightning farm system to hold both titles simultaneously.
The bracket and what stood in the way
The 2026 Calder Cup playoff format gave the No. 1 and No. 2 seeds in each division a first-round bye. As the second seed in the North, Syracuse drew the winner of the No. 3 versus No. 6 first-round series. Cleveland, the third seed, dispatched Utica in a best-of-three first round to earn that matchup.
The North Division Semifinals were a best-of-five series with the higher seed hosting Games 3, 4 and 5. Cleveland opened at home on Friday, April 24, hosted Game 2 on Sunday, April 26, then traveled to Syracuse for Games 3 and 4. The format reverses traditional NHL playoff sequencing and has been controversial inside AHL front offices for the way it gifts home ice to lower seeds in the opening two games. Syracuse general manager Joel Bouchard, asked about the format earlier this spring, declined to criticize it publicly.
Game 1 in Cleveland on April 24 was a one-period game. The Monsters scored three goals in the opening frame, on tallies from Justin Pearson at 4:25, Will Butcher at 14:25 and Corson Ceulemans late, then held on. Duke pulled one back at 1:51 of the second and Chaffee made it 3-2 at 4:02 of the third, but Cleveland goaltender Zach Sawchenko held off a third-period push that included 17 Syracuse shots. Final: 3-2 Cleveland.
Game 2 on April 26 in Cleveland was the cleanest 60 minutes Syracuse played all spring. The Crunch scored four first-period goals, with Lucas Mercuri, Gabriel Szturc, Jakob Pelletier and Tommy Miller all finding the back of the net, and won 4-1. Halverson made 32 saves on 33 shots. Szturc’s goal was the eventual winner, his seventh in nine career games against Cleveland.
Game 3 at Upstate Medical University Arena on May 1 went to overtime. Cleveland won 4-3 on a Hudson Fasching goal in the first extra session to take a 2-1 series lead. The Crunch had outshot the Monsters but could not finish in regulation, and the late Cleveland push paid off in the extra frame.
Game 4, also at Upstate Medical University Arena on May 3, was the marathon and the elimination game. Pietroniro put Syracuse ahead at 6:21 of the first. Cleveland’s Luca Marrelli tied it late in the second. The game ran scoreless through regulation, then through one overtime period, then through a second. Halverson kept Syracuse alive with stops on point-blank chances in each of the first two overtimes. In the third overtime, at 7:53, Aston-Reese ended it. Final: 2-1 Cleveland in triple overtime. Cleveland advanced to the North Division Finals against the Toronto Marlies. The Crunch had outshot Cleveland in three of the four games and lost the series 3-1.
Tampa connection: call-ups in May
The most chaotic stretch of the spring for the Crunch had nothing to do with their own playoff series. It came in the 10-day window between the end of the AHL regular season and the start of round one, when Tampa Bay reshuffled its farm system roster three separate times.
On April 15, the Lightning recalled forwards Mitchell Chaffee and Jakob Pelletier from Syracuse as injury cover for the NHL postseason run against Montreal. Both played in NHL warm-ups and one full game before being reassigned. On April 19, the day Syracuse’s first-round opponent was set, Tampa recalled Conor Geekie and Brandon Halverson. Halverson, the goaltender Syracuse needed for its own series, was on a flight to Tampa for less than 48 hours.
On April 23, Tampa reassigned Halverson back to Syracuse and recalled prospect Harrison Meneghin, a 2024 seventh-round draft pick, to take his spot in the NHL system. Halverson started Game 1 the next night in Cleveland.
Steven Santini’s NHL recall pattern told a similar story. The captain was recalled by Tampa Bay on December 7, 2025, reassigned on December 15, recalled again on December 18, then sent back. He was recalled once more in March before settling in Syracuse for the stretch run and the playoffs. Santini signed a two-year, two-way contract with Tampa Bay on June 3, 2025, which means the same paycheck pays him at NHL or AHL rates depending on where he is on a given day.
This is the AHL bargain. The Lightning use Syracuse as the proving ground for first-round picks like Geekie, a depth pool for veterans like Santini, and a salary-cap solution for players like Chaffee. The Crunch get a roster that is good enough to finish second in the division but can be stripped down to its support beams in 48 hours.
What the Crunch mean for Syracuse downtown
The 5,800-seat Upstate Medical University Arena, built in 1951 and located in the OnCenter complex on South State Street in downtown Syracuse, fills with hockey fans 36 nights a year. That foot traffic supports a cluster of bars and restaurants along South Salina Street, including the Blue Tusk and Kitty Hoynes, that count on Crunch game nights for a meaningful share of weekend gross.
Season attendance figures are not yet posted in the AHL’s official year-end report, but the Crunch averaged in the range of 5,000 to 5,500 fans per game, consistent with mid-pack AHL gates in past years. The two Cleveland home dates that opened the semifinal series drew the higher numbers in the matchup. Rocket Arena in Cleveland reported announced attendance of 10,110 for Game 1 on April 24 and 10,038 for Game 2 on April 26. Syracuse home attendance for Games 3 and 4 has not been published in an official league box score.
The Crunch are the only major professional sports tenant of downtown Syracuse. The Mets, the Triple-A affiliate of the New York Mets, play at NBT Bank Stadium on the north side of town, a 15-minute drive from the arena. The Crunch are the team you can walk to from the bus station, from the bar district, from the office towers. That matters for a downtown that has been working to bring evening foot traffic back since the pandemic.
When and where to watch
Syracuse Crunch home games for 2026-27 will return to Upstate Medical University Arena beginning in October. The full schedule is expected from the team in early July. Tickets for the 2026-27 home opener will go on sale through Ticketmaster and the Crunch box office at 800 South State Street in early August.
The Calder Cup itself will be awarded in mid-June. The Cleveland Monsters play the Toronto Marlies in the North Division Finals starting May 16, with the winner advancing to the Eastern Conference Finals. The Calder Cup Finals are scheduled for early to mid-June, with Game 7 if necessary on Father’s Day weekend, June 20 and 21.
For Syracuse, the offseason starts now. Pelletier is a restricted free agent. Halverson’s contract expires this summer. Duke is signed through 2026-27 and Geekie’s entry-level deal runs through 2027-28. Joel Bouchard will return as head coach and general manager, with the same task he has held since adding the GM title in July 2025: build a team good enough to win a Calder Cup, knowing that the best players on it are going to spend large parts of the season in Tampa.
The shot that ended the season hit the back of the net at 11:47 p.m. on a Sunday. The Crunch handshake line lasted longer than the third overtime period itself. The 5,800-seat arena emptied quietly. The team will try again in October.
