It’s official: the Colorado Eagles will play the San Diego Gulls (ANA) in the first round of the AHL Calder Cup Playoffs. In the AHL, there are five playoff rounds to win the Calder Cup. Round one for the Pacific Division is a best-of-three series. As the higher seed, the Eagles will host the entire series at Blue Arena in Loveland. So how do these two teams match up?
The bracket for the 2026 Calder Cup Playoffs
San Diego Gulls
The San Diego Gulls finished the season in seventh place in the Pacific Division with a record of 33–26–8–4. Their power play ranks 13th in the league, converting 19.3 percent of opportunities. Their penalty kill ranks seventh at 83.8 percent. They’re 4–6–0–0 in their last ten games. This will be their first playoff appearance since 2022. They haven’t won a playoff series since 2019.
Sasha Patujov leads the team in points with 21 goals and 36 assists. Former Eagle Matthew Phillips is right behind him with 16 goals and 36 assists. Rookie defenseman Stian Solberg is sixth in the league among defensemen for goals. Their top goalie, Calle Clang, has a GAA of 2.80 and a .897 save percentage. The Gulls are a scrappy team who had to battle to secure the final playoff spot in the Pacific.
Colorado Eagles
The Eagles have never failed to make the playoffs in any league they’ve played in. This season, they finished in second place in the Pacific Division at 41–20–6–5. They’re also 5–1–0–2 against the Gulls this season. On paper, this looks like an easy win for the Eagles.
Photo courtesy of the Colorado Eagles.
In reality, it could get ugly. To understand why, we need to break the Eagles’ stats down.
In many ways, Colorado’s season is split in two. The first half of the season, they were almost unstoppable, finishing 2025 with a record of 20–6–0–1 and a win percentage of 74 percent. In the entire AHL, they were second only to the Grand Rapids Griffins (whose record-breaking stats through the first half of the season made the Avalanche’s numbers look mediocre). At the end of December, the Eagles’ power play and penalty kill were both at the top of the league.
Things fall apart…
But since January 1, they’ve imploded, going 21–14–6–4. That’s a win percentage of only 46 percent. They’ve given up multiple leads in the last few minutes of games. Their overtime statistics are atrocious. Their power play has been firing at a measly 17.4 percent since the first of the year, and their once rock-solid penalty kill has fallen to 75.9 percent. In Friday’s game against the Calgary Wranglers, who were ranked dead last in the AHL and had already been eliminated from the playoffs, the Eagles had eight power play opportunities (eight!) and failed to score on any of them. They also gave up two power-play goals. In their last ten games, the Eagles are 5–4–1–0.
I already mentioned that the Eagles are 5–1–0–2 against the Gulls this season. What I didn’t say is that two of those three losses happened just a few weeks ago. Over the last few months, the Eagles have struggled with multiple teams that should have been easy pickings. They’re also in a bind when it comes to netminders. With Kyle Keyser injured and listed as week-to-week, and rookie Isak Posch struggling since the All-Star break, the weight of the world now rests on Trent Miner’s shoulders. Miner has played nine of the last eleven games, and five of six since Keyser’s injury. He has a GAA of 2.62 and a save percentage of .904. He’s good enough to get them through the playoffs, but without a solid backup, the workload could prove too much to bear.
Photo courtesy of the Colorado Eagles
On the bright side
It’s not all doom and gloom, I promise. The Eagles have an impressive array of talent on their roster. Alex Barré-Boulet leads the team and ranks second in the league in points. Tristen Nielsen leads the team in goals with 28. Barré-Boulet and Jayson Megna are only two goals behind him. T.J. Hughes has played with both Taylor Makar and Gavin Brindley in the past, and it shows. The three of them had great chemistry on the ice together in Saturday’s game. They could end up being a serious threat down the road.
Photo courtesy of the Colorado Eagles.
Plus, Colorado has a crew of fantastic defensemen on the blue line, including Keaton Middleton, former Defenseman of the Year Jacob MacDonald, Wyatt Aamodt, and Jack Ahcan. I’ve said before that Ahcan has quietly become the backbone of this team, and I stand by that assessment. He ranks second in the league for points among defensemen, and I think he deserves to win the Eddie Shore Award for Outstanding Defenseman this year.
So there is plenty of reason to be optimistic. When this team is playing its best hockey, it’s unstoppable. The problem lies in how rare their “best hockey” has become.
Conclusion
I’m in no way saying the Eagles are doomed to lose this series. What I am saying is that it’s not going to be a cakewalk. If they want to make it to the second round, they’re going to need to play a lot better than they have over the last few weeks.
