All postseason long, every time the Providence Bruins had been down, they had always gotten back up.

Trailing 2-1 in the best-of-five opening round to the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins, the team with the best record in the American Hockey League during the regular season, the P-Bruins rallied for two straight wins to advance past the same squad that had knocked them out in a surprising sweep a year ago. Providence then found themselves down 3-2 against Hershey the following round, heading back to Hershey for the final two games. But a deficit that seemed to be insurmountable turned out to be just a bump in the road as the P-Bruins would a scratch out two consecutive 4-2 victories to roll into their first conference final since 2009.

Entering Saturday’s Game 5 in Syracuse against the Crunch, Providence, this time down 3-1, hoped to grab at least one game in Upstate New York in order to get the series back to the Dunkin Donuts Center to complete their comeback. Unfortunately for the Baby B’s, that would not be the case.

Cory Conacher scored two late third period goals and Mike McKenna stymied the Providence offense allowing just one goal on 28 shots as Syracuse eliminated the P-Bruins, 3-1, to advance to the Calder Cup Final. Syracuse will take on the Grand Rapids Griffiths in a rematch of the 2013 championship – won by Grand Rapids in six games.

Providence found themselves behind the eight-ball early as Ben Thomas tallied the evening’s first goal – for the second game in a row – just 41 seconds in. Thomas, parked at the top of the left faceoff circle, took a feed from Michael Bournival in the slot and buried a slap shot past Malcolm Subban, who was making his first start of the playoffs, to give the Crunch a 1-0 lead.

Syracuse nearly had a two-goal lead several times in the first, but Subban came up big, making a big save on a Conacher shot and stuffing Byron Froese on a breakaway. Providence killed off two power plays during the frame and would have a power-play opportunity of their own midway through the first, but nothing was doing.

But Providence found their stride in the second period, firing 13 shots on net and eventually tying the score at 13:27. Ryan Fitzgerald forced a turnover behind the Syracuse net and fed Chris Porter in front of McKenna for the equalizer.

The game remained tied until just over five minutes left in the third when Conacher took over. The Syracuse forward banked home a rebound off a Thomas shot from the point to give Syracuse the lead. With 59 seconds remaining in the game, Conacher added his fifth goal of the Eastern Conference Finals as his an empty-netter iced the game and the series. With his two goals, Conacher now sits in first place in the playoff scoring race with 20 points.

After the game, Providence players were understandably frustrated with the end of their season.

“It’s obviously frustrating,” defenseman Matt Grzelcyk said, “we felt like we had more to give.”

“It’s an indescribable feeling, something you hate to fell,” Subban added.

But head coach Kevin Dean was a bit more upbeat, praising the team’s ability to come back and stated how they should keep their heads high.

“We’ve been a resilient team,” Dean said following the season-ending loss. “We’ve been able to get that goal at the right time [but] tonight we couldn’t. I don’t think that’s a reflection of us, I think that’s a reflection of what Syracuse did. I couldn’t be more proud of them and they should be proud too.”

Providence did not hold a lead at all during the series, except for their overtime win in Game 2. Providence finished 9-for-59 on power-play opportunities during the postseason while yielding 13 goals on the 64 times they were shorthanded.