For the Vancouver Canucks organization, the 2014-2015 season is now completely over and done with. 

After getting blown out 6-3 at home in a critical game 4, the Calder Cup was in the building as the Comets needed to win tonight to send the series back to Manchester. Unfortunately, they fell behind early in the first period and weren’t able to crack Monarchs goalie Patrik Bartosak until the last fifteen seconds of the third, losing the deciding game 5 on home ice by a 2-1 score.

It was a disappointing end to what was an otherwise fantastic season for Vancouver’s farm club.

We knew that if there was one team the Comets would have tremendous difficulty beating in a seven game series, it was going to be the Manchester Monarchs. L.A.’s affiliate was the top team in the AHL in nearly every metric this season, including standings points, goals for and against, and puck possession. They are a truly elite AHL team and fully deserving of being 2015 AHL Champions. The Comets lost to a worthy adversary, if that’s worth anything.

The 2014-15 Comets were Vancouver’s most successful farm team since the 2008-09 Manitoba Moose, who lost to the Hershey Bears in the Calder Cup finals as well. A 22-year old Cory Schneider was the centrepiece of that Moose run, but no other player from that team would go on to play a meaningful role for the Canucks. Michael Grabner was the Moose’s 3rd leading scorer, but he was dealt to Florida not long after. Cody Hodgson also joined the team for the playoffs, but was primarily a role player.

The saving grace is that the crop of prospects on this year’s Comets are much more impressive that that year’s Moose. Frank Corrado, Sven Baertschi, Adam Clendening, Hunter Shinkaruk, Jake Virtanen, and Brendan Gaunce all showed well through the playoffs, and even Nicklas Jensen looked better once being elevated to the top line. The team still relied on Markstrom, O’Reilly, Biega, and Sanguinetti to play major roles, but this year’s group of prospects are much more impressive than guys like Bliznak, Desbiens, Bolduc, and Labrie in 2009.

We’ll have our usual postgame review at a later time, as well as a breakdown of the full Calder Cup series in the coming days. Thank you for following along with our Comets coverage this season – we hope you’ve enjoyed it.