The Tampa Bay Lightning aren’t the only team in the organization looking for a long playoff run. After it looked like their season was in jeopardy in early February, the Syracuse Crunch went on a tear and ended up with the second seed in AHL North Division. Their reward was a trip directly to the second round and a match-up against the Laval Rocket.
It’ll be the first postseason meeting for the division rivals and the Rocket’s first trip to the playoffs in their five-year existence. For the Crunch, they haven’t tasted the postseason since their underwhelming series sweep to the Cleveland Monsters in 2019 (hey, that sounds familiar to Lightning fans!