SPRINGFIELD, Mass — Alex Lyon stopped all 28 shots he faced as the Wolves wrapped up their fifth league championship with a 4-0 victory over the Springfield Thunderbirds on Saturday night in Game 5 of the Calder Cup Finals.

Captain Andrew Poturalski, Orland Park native David Gust, postseason Most Valuable Player Josh Leivo and defenseman Max Lajoie scored for the Wolves (14-4), who swept four games in six days from the Thunderbirds after losing in overtime in Game 1. Lyon pushed his postseason record to 9-3 with his second shutout of the playoffs.

“Credit to these players, man, they’re something special,” coach Ryan Warsofsky said. “We wanted to get a group together to do something special.

“It was never about winning a championship in November. It was, ‘Let’s have a really good day today and get better and win that day.’ You have to play for each other and you have to play for something bigger than yourself. Every guy in there bought into it.”

The Wolves became the first American Hockey League team in 22 years to produce two shutouts in the Finals while earning the right to raise a 2022 Calder Cup Champions banner at Allstate Arena that will go next to the ones for the 1998 Turner Cup, 2000 Turner Cup, 2002 Calder Cup and 2008 Calder Cup.

Goaltender Charlie Lindgren denied the Wolves early with two highlight-reel glove saves, but the visitors maintained consistent pressure and wound up scoring the opening goal for the 12th game in a row, thanks to Lajoie.

He chased down an errant shot along the left half-wall, scooted in and fired a shot that was blocked and came back to his stick. He chipped another shot that banked off defenseman Matthew Kessel’s upper body and across the goal line for a 1-0 lead at 18:39 of the first.

“I tried to hit [Ivan Lodnia] back-door and then got the puck back,” Lajoie said. “I just tried to put it on net. I think it went off their ‘D,’ but it’s a good bounce for us.”

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ST. LOUIS – When Nico Hoerner logged the Cubs’ first home run of the season, manager David Ross burst into the Wrigley Field interview after the game saying, “Who had Nico Hoerner on their first home run pool?”

Hoerner smiled when reminded on Saturday of Ross’ reaction, before the Cubs’ 5-3 loss to the Cardinals. Hoerner’s most recent home run of the season, which he blasted over the left field fence on Friday, brought his season total to a career-high four homers.

“There’s a lot that comes from just the opportunity to play every day,” Hoerner said, “and just accumulate at-bats, face pitchers multiple times. And all those things are very real. … But I think there’s a lot more there still.”

Hoerner is one of the longer tenured players on this roster, which has seen dramatic turnover in the past couple years, so it’s easy to forget how little professional experience he’s had. This season is Hoerner’s first with at least 50 MLB games. And he only debuted in 2019, after the Double-A season.

Now, Hoerner is setting single-season career highs every couple days. On Thursday, he set a new career high in RBI (18). The next day he hit his fourth home run of the year, also adding two more RBI to his season total.

On the defensive side, he’s established himself as the Cubs’ everyday shortstop, despite external rumblings over the offseason about whether he could or should be the Cubs’ answer at that position this year.

“The concept of a ceiling is kind of silly in this game,” Hoerner said. “And I don’t know what that is. And I’m excited to see what that is. And that’s just a day-by-day thing. I’ve never set out to be drafted in a certain round, or go to a certain school, or make it to the big-leagues by a certain year. It’s always been day-by-day for me. And I’ve been fortunate how things have turned out, obviously, but that’s going to be my approach moving forward. I think it’s more enjoyable.”

Hoerner, of course, was selected in the first round of the 2018 MLB Draft. He was coming from Stanford. He made it to the big-leagues the next year.

Suzuki to take live BP

Cubs outfielder Seiya Suzuki (sprained left ring finger) was expected to take live batting practice in Arizona on Saturday, according to the team. Ross said if all goes well, he anticipates Suzuki joining the team in Chicago on Tuesday to be evaluated for next steps.

Progressing to live batting practice is a good sign for a rehab process that’s been “moving pretty fast,” according to Ross, since Suzuki headed to Arizona last week.

Mills gets the nod

The Cubs originally penciled in Matt Swarmer to start in the series finale against the Cardinals. But by the time they got to St. Louis, they’d changed their probable starter Sunday to Alec Mills.

Mills was already stretched out, after throwing 4 1/3 innings in a blowout loss to the Pirates on Monday. It will be his first start of the season, after a back injury in spring training took him out of the competition for a rotation spot.Ross said he plans to try Swarmer out in the bullpen.

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A 16-year-old girl was wounded by gunfire Saturday afternoon in Grand Crossing on the South Side.

The teen was on a sidewalk in the 1500 block of East 75th Street about 4:30 p.m. when someone inside a car fired shots, striking her in the arm, Chicago police said.

She was taken to the University of Chicago Medical Center, where she was reportedly in good condition, officials said.

No one was in custody.

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ST. LOUIS – When Adrian Sampson joined the Cubs on this two-city road trip, manager David Ross made sure to say, I told you so.

He didn’t lead with that, first asking about his early flight into Pittsburgh on Thursday. But after those niceties, Ross added with a smile: “I told you you’d be here.”

On Saturday, Sampson made his first major league start of the season, in a whirlwind year for the right-hander, as the Cubs lost 5-3 the Cardinals. He held the Cardinals to two runs through five innings at Busch Stadium.

Both those runs came in the first inning, as he gave up three straight base hits, two of which were bloopers that dropped into left field.

Sampson had earned the start after holding the Braves to one hit through 4 2/3 scoreless innings of relief last week.Days later, the Cubs had to trim the number of pitchers on their roster to 13, as the new roster limit went into effect. The Cubs optioned Sampson to Triple-A.

“I know I’ll see you back real soon,” Ross said as he delivered the news, in what he described as an “extremely difficult” conversation.

That back-and-forth barely begins to describe the kind of year Sampson has had.

Sampson began the year in the Cubs organization, but they designated him for assignment on May 10, and Seattle claimed him off waivers. He never appeared for the Mariners, who cut him eight days later, putting Sampson in, as Cubs pitching coach Tommy Hottovy put it, “DFA limbo.”

When he cleared waivers, Sampson elected free agency instead of an outright assignment to the Mariners’ Triple-A affiliate.The Cubs signed Sampson to a minor-league contract on May 31. He hadn’t pitched in a game in over three weeks.

“For him to take that all in stride, it’s just a testament to who he is and his work ethic,” Hottovy said in a conversation with the Sun-Times. “And he’s being rewarded for handling things the right way.”

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The Chicago Blackhawks appear to have their next head coach according to reports as they are targeting Luke Richardson

The offseason has already sparked coaching changes and extensions. Montreal extended Martin St. Louis, The Dallas Stars brought on Peter Deboer, and the Blackhawks have a man of their own.

The next bench boss of the Blackhawks will be Luke Richardson according to the Daily Face-offs Frank Seravalli.

Richardson served as Assistant coach of the Montreal Canadiens since June, 2018. Before that he had stints as the assistant coach for the Senators and Islanders, in between the two he was the Head Coach of the AHL Binghampton Senators. In his first season as Head Coach of the AHL squad he was awarded Eastern Conference coach of the year and a contract extension through the next season. Following his contract expiring he moved on to the Islanders for one season before finding a more long term landing spot in Montreal.

During the 2021 playoffs, Richardson briefly took over behind the bench for the Canadiens after Dominque Ducharme tested positive for Covid. Richardson helped the Canadiens defeat the Vegas Golden Knights before relinquishing control back to Ducharme to face Tampa in the final. We all know how that went.

Richardson played in the NHL for 21 seasons as a defenseman. In over 1400 games he put up only 201 points, however he did put up 2055 penalty minutes in his career, so he at least got onto the score sheet most games.

Previously we covered the prospect of Barry Trotz getting behind the Blackhawks bench, but it seems he will either end up in Nashville or Winnipeg. Despite this it seems the Blackhawks have found their guy, only time will tell where he leads this team.

Could the Blackhawks acquire his Nephew?

Jacob Chychrun has been known to be on the market for a while now. The Coyotes are bad and will continue to be bad and will almost certainly be moving on from Chychrun soon, so why not come and play for his uncle?

Sure, it is certainly a stretch, but maybe that connection could be enough to put the wheels in motion. Some people probably wouldn’t want their relatives as their boss, but when you’re as good as Chychrun is it is hard to believe that would really be an issue.

Obviously this is all just speculation and a little bit of drawing lines between things that are hardly there, but it sure would be nice to see Chychrun in the windy city. Defense has been a huge problem for the Blackhawks as of late, maybe an acquisition like that could be a step in the right direction.

Make sure to check out our Blackhawks forum for the latest on the team.

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On their summer break, the Bears still managed to get an important — and inevitable — piece of business done Saturday. They signed second-round draft pick Kyler Gordon, their top selection in April, to his standard four-year rookie deal. He’ll make about $8.5 million over four years.

The Bears chose the cornerback No. 39 overall out of Washington. He impressed in offseason practices before being slowed by injuries. He’s expected to be fine for the start of training camp July 26.

“Obviously, he has good ball skills,” defensive backs coach James Rowe said in May. “And he finds himself in good position enough to be able to look back and locate the quarterback and locate the ball … to be able to put himself in those positions and make those plays.”

New Bears general manager Ryan Poles used a series of third-day trades to give the Bears 12 selections. After Gordon’s signing, only Penn State safety Jaquan Brisker, another second-round pick, remains unsigned.

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