Captain McIlrath has again achieved victory | GAME OF ICE HOCKEY

Dylan McIlrath of St. Vital does it again

For the second straight season, Winnipeg product Dylan McIlrath has led the American Hockey League’s Hershey Bears to the Calder Cup championship.

The Washington Capitals’ developmental affiliate came out on top in Game 6 of the Calder Cup Finals, winning 5-4 in overtime against the Coachella Valley Firebirds to capture back-to-back Calder Cup titles.

The back-and-forth match at Giant Center Arena saw multiple lead changes and momentum shifts throughout the match, including Firebirds’ defenseman Cale Fleury tying the game on fours with 2:55 left in the third period. But the Bears remained resilient and would soon capture the franchise’s 13th Calder Cup championship, with fourth-line forward Matt Strome scoring the Cup-winning goal just 1:06 into overtime.

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The 6-foot-4, 230-pound defenseman certainly didn’t blow up the scoresheet in the postseason, recording just 3 assists in 20 playoff games, but that doesn’t detract from the captain’s important role on his Hershey team.

McIlrath – the No. 10 overall pick by the New York Rangers in the 2010 NHL Draft – plays a very physical and unfussy defensive brand of hockey, allowing his teammates to play more freely in the offensive zone. McIlrath’s defensive awareness around the ice has helped him to a plus-5 rating this postseason, and his hard-hitting physical play has provided some big momentum shifts during Hershey’s run to the Cup.

“We’ve been talking about it all year, especially here. We will have to make sacrifices for each other,” the St. Vital product added after the celebration. “We’re going to do what it takes.”

After beating Coachella Valley in last year’s Calder Cup Finals in seven games (which were also decided in overtime), Bears head coach Todd Nelson and McIlrath knew they had a good chance to do it again with an even better team .

“We had the expectation all year that we were the best, and we had to turn that back,” McIlrath said. “It takes a lot of mental strength to get through that, to be honest, but we got through it.”

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Despite Hershey’s dominant regular season, the playoffs are always a different beast. The Bears may have been the favorite heading into the postseason, but there are never any guarantees.

Hershey comfortably defeated the Lehigh Valley Phantoms 3-1 and the Hartford Wolf Pack 3-0 in the first two best-of-five rounds. However, the Cleveland Monsters gave them a run for their money in the third round, helping Hershey reach seven games before losing 3-2 in overtime.

With Hershey once again advancing to the Calder Cup Finals, it set the stage for the ultimate rematch of last year’s finals against Coachella Valley. The Firebirds led 2-1 in the series at one point, but then the Bears seized control and never let go, defeating them for the second time in a row.

“It’s been a great year,” McIlrath said. “This group was something special; We knew that from the start.”

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