AHL cancels remainder of the 2019-20 season
The AHL came to the unfortunate decision on Monday morning to cancel the rest of their hockey season.
It was a tough decision, but the American Hockey League has decided to cancel the rest of their season. The Board of Governors voted on the fate of the season of Friday. And AHL President David Andrews announced the decision early this morning.
"“The AHL continues to place paramount importance on the health and safety of our players, officials, staff and fans and all of their families, and we all look forward to returning to our arenas in 2020-21.”"
While the NHL is still on a hiatus, it wasn’t feasible for the AHL to wait things out. The league is dependent on the revenue fans bring in. They will now shift their focus to preparation for the 2020-21 season.
The Calder Cup, the AHL’s championship trophy, had been the longest annually awarded trophy since 1936. It will not find a home this season.
The AHL standings as of March 12th will be used to determine league awards. The league uses points percentage to determine the standings. That would leave the Lehigh Valley Phantoms in seventh place in the Atlantic Division. They were 26th in the entire league.
It was another tough season for the Phantoms as they will finish with a 24-28-3-7 record. The team had seven remaining home games left on their schedule.
Missing the playoffs for the second straight season, the Phantoms finished with a worse record than they did a season ago. Their 39-30-4-3 had them fifth in the Atlantic Division. It also had them above .500 in points percentage.
The team finished with 85 points and were 15th in the entire league. They only had 58 points this season.
It will no doubt be considered a disappointing season as the Phantoms also finished with the worst power play in the AHL. They had the 17th best penalty kill.
The Phantoms leading goal scorer finished with just 30 points. That was Greg Carey.
There were some positives despite the final results. Morgan Frost shined in his 41 games with the team. During his first professional season, he finished second on the team in points with 29. His 13 goals were also second.
We also saw Kirill Ustimenko make his AHL debut this past season. He will almost certainly be the team’s starter next year.
Sinply put, though, the team wasn’t good enough this season. An early offseason will have them shifting focus to next season.