The Marlies are AHL champions: the Rocket will have suffered the same fate as the Canadiens

Mathis Therrien
The Marlies are AHL champions: the Rocket will have suffered the same fate as the Canadiens
Credit: Capture d'écran Twitter

As everyone knows by now, the Carolina Hurricanes are the Stanley Cup champions of the 2025–2026 National Hockey League season.

They had an impressive playoff run, winning all 16 games needed to claim the Cup while suffering only three losses in total.

The Canes eliminated the Ottawa Senators in four games, the Philadelphia Flyers in four, the Montreal Canadiens in five, and the Vegas Golden Knights in six.

Only the Golden Knights put up a real fight against the Canes.

At least the Montreal Canadiens have the luxury of saying they were eliminated by the Stanley Cup champions, which clearly provides some consolation at the end of the season.

Well, that small consolation has just been repeated for the Habs' farm team, the Laval Rocket, as they learned last night that they, too, had been eliminated by the champions—this time, the Calder Cup champions.

Indeed, the Toronto Marlies clinched the title last night with a 4–3 victory in Game 5 of the finals against the Charlotte Checkers.

The city of Toronto was thus able to celebrate a hockey championship—despite the main team's struggles—by defeating the Florida Panthers' affiliate, which had swept the Rocket in last season's conference finals.

The Marlies had quite a playoff run; having finished fourth in the North Division, they had to start with a preliminary round, where they defeated the Rochester Americans 2–1 in a best-of-three series.

In the next round, they dealt a blow to Quebec by eliminating the Laval Rocket in five games at Place Bell, winning the best-of-five series 3–2.

They then also eliminated the Cleveland Monsters in five games in the division final, ultimately qualifying for the championship game with a 4–2 victory in the conference final series against the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins.

In short, the Marlies have had a magical run, which now allows the Rocket to declare loud and clear that they lost to the Calder Cup champions.

Both the Canadiens and the Rocket were thus eliminated by the champions.


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