LOVELAND — The pain and sacrifice in pursuit of a championship was spread across Jayson Megna’s face.
The 36-year-old captain’s eyes were watering. The impact of an injury that he rushed back weeks ahead of schedule to play in this Game 7 for the Colorado Eagles was still obvious, though the bruising was fading a bit.
The wound will heal. The scars left by this Western Conference Final defeat to the Chicago Wolves in seven games will linger.
“It takes everything,” Megna said Monday night. “You can’t dip your toe in. Itap all-out sacrifice. Thatap why itap so hard to win championships at any level. Super proud of the guys. Itap not the end that any of us wanted.”
Megna and the Eagles returned home to Northern Colorado ready to triumph, needing to win one more game to reach the Calder Cup Final for the first time in franchise history. Through 20 minutes Sunday night, it looked well within their grasp.
Forty minutes later, the Wolves had a stunning come-from-behind Game 6 victory. Twenty-five hours after that, a raucous crowd at Blue FCU Arena was left silent. The Wolves won Game 6, 3-2, and Game 7, 4-3, in enemy territory to advance to the 2026 Western Conference Final.
The best AHL season in franchise history for the Eagles ended in sadness and dismay. The scene afterward felt similar to the one in Las Vegas after the Avalanche were pushed out of the Stanley Cup Playoffs in a year that often felt earmarked for greatness.
“I’m disappointed for them, not in them,” Eagles coach Mark Letestu said. “I believe this team is championship-level. Tonight, and the series, reveals just how hard winning is. To be able to outplay them, in my opinion, probably six or seven games, but you don’t always get results. It’s very disappointing, because I know what they put into it. You just feel for them.
“This one will stick with me for a while.”
The AHL is, at its core, a developmental league for the NHL. It is the second-best hockey league in the world, but it’s also a key stop on the path for many NHL players.
There are several young players on the Eagles roster who can profit from this deep playoff run in the future. Players like forwards T.J. Hughes, Taylor Makar and Gavin Brindley, plus defensemen Sean Behrens and Alex Gagne, are all guys who believe their journey has better days ahead at the next level up.
This was the first time the Eagles reached the AHL’s conference final since moving up from the ECHL for the 2018-19 season. NHL clubs will always say that all AHL game reps are valuable for development, but it is during the Calder Cup Playoffs, when the competition ramps up and the space available on the ice shrinks, that it comes closest to NHL quality.
“I hope it propels them,” Letestu said. “I hope it makes them hungrier. You get a taste of success. A long playoff run, itap invaluable for their experience, but they don’t want to hear that right now. Coming up short never feels right, never feels good. And this one, when you feel like you have the pieces for it, makes it feel a little bit worse.”
The Eagles had the joint fifth-best record in the regular season. An upset-filled AHL playoff bracket broke their way, so they had home-ice advantage for the Western Conference Final, and would have had it for the Calder Cup Final as well.
For veteran players like Megna, Keaton Middleton and Jacob MacDonald, this was 5-6 years of service with this organization in the making. That’s why Megna, who hadn’t played in a month, returned for Game 7 two or three weeks before he was projected to, a full face shield attached to his helmet.
Megna scored with 70 seconds remaining in Game 7, at the business end of a great play by Makar, but the sand in the hourglass ran out at the end of a chaotic game.
“They cautiously gave me the green light and just said ‘make sure you protect yourself,’ ” Megna said. “I wanted to leave it all out there for Game 7, and make sure I was there for the guys.
“This group will never be the same. Thatap part of hockey, but itap tragic. You get so close to these guys and battle together for such a long time. Thought we were right there.”
Just before Megna spoke in the hallway outside the Eagles locker room, Gagne lumbered by on crutches. He had been injured in the first period of Game 7, leaving the Eagles with five defensemen in the fight of their AHL lives.
The injuries he speculated he might have were ones that should leave a player out of the lineup for weeks, if not months. He was on the bench in the second period, still trying to get back into this fight.
This was unquestionably a successful season for the Eagles, including for Letestu as a first-year head coach. There will certainly be big changes before next year.
Assistant coach Kim Weiss, who broke barriers this season, is expected to be named head coach of the Las Vegas expansion franchise in the PWHL. Roster construction in the AHL is in a constant state of motion.
But just like the Avs, the Eagles will remember the scars from this one. It was a year, and a championship, that slipped away at both levels.
“I love these guys. I love this team. I love what they stand for,” Letestu said. “I love standing behind them and letting them do their thing. I think thatap something maybe a couple weeks from now in reflection, but right now this one stings.
“I wanted to win. I wanted my guys to win. I wanted our team to win a championship. Right now, anything short of that just feels a little empty, a little hollow.”
