Patrick Williams, TheAHL.com Features Writer
Down to the final seconds of the final minute of the final period of their 96-game journey, the Abbotsford Canucks stood for one thing.
Resilience.
It’s a word that first-year head coach Manny Malhotra had used repeatedly, particularly during the Canucks’ journey through the Calder Cup Playoffs. Leads sometimes wavered. Their holds on series sometimes looked shaky. Injuries accumulated. Penalty troubles and slow starts tested the team. Twice they faced elimination, including in the first round way back in April.
But the Canucks kept going, kept pushing even when the Calder Cup Playoffs were at their toughest. Especially when they were at their toughest.
“I think it starts from the top,” captain Chase Wouters said. “It starts with Manny. It starts with our coaching staff. Every day we showed up, and we worked, and that’s what makes these moments easier. No matter if it’s a Monday in January, we’re at the rink working, and that’s what’s pretty special.”
Game 96 came on a Monday, but it felt anything like January. Game 6 of the Calder Cup Finals inside a hot, humid Bojangles Coliseum provided the Canucks one last chance to show their collective resolve. The Checkers had already taken Game 5 back in Abbotsford, denying the Canucks a championship celebration on home ice and forcing them to make the long eastward trek back to Charlotte.
And it got worse quickly, as John Leonard and Jack Devine staked the Checkers to a 2-0 lead just 13:14 into the contest. Could this thing go to a Game 7?
But the excellent Abbotsford power play got down to work. Late in the first period, Sammy Blais found a patch of open ice in the left circle, curled, and then snapped a far-side shot under the crossbar past Charlotte goaltender Kaapo Kähkönen.
They had some regrouping to do as they left the ice for the first intermission, but the Canucks had at least stalled some of the home-ice energy that the Checkers had going.
Less than four minutes into the second period, Wouters and Danila Klimovich teamed up to generate havoc in front of Kähkönen. Klimovich broke loose from coverage enough to poke in a rebound for a 2-2 game.
Still, the middle frame brought plenty of touch-and-go moments for the visitors. The Canucks got into penalty trouble, putting Charlotte on the power play three times. But Abbotsford killed them all off; the Canucks would finish at 88.2 percent on the penalty kill during the playoffs.
Late in the period, Abbotsford’s top line of Arshdeep Bains, Max Sasson and Linus Karlsson pinned the Checkers in deep. And kept them pinned. Charlotte was stuck for a full minute in their own zone. Bains won a puck battle from his knees before zipping a pass from the right corner to Karlsson at the far post for a one-timer and the Canucks’ first lead of the night.
Charlotte does not fold easily, though. The shots kept coming at Artūrs Šilovs, who faced 11 of them in the third period. In the final 2:30 alone, Leonard uncorked a shot that Šilovs had to direct into the far corner. Abbotsford defenders blocked attempts from Leonard, Devine and Justin Sourdif. Twice more the Canucks had to ice the puck and then hold off the Charlotte attack.
With 6.4 seconds left in regulation, the Checkers won a faceoff just outside the blue line and let go of a last-chance shot that sailed off-target. The Canucks streamed off their bench toward Šilovs.
Their resilience had paid off. Šilovs excelled again, finishing Game 6 with 28 saves and tying an AHL record with 16 playoff wins. Karlsson finished with the league postseason lead with 14 goals and 26 points. Bains had four goals and six assists in the series, joining Coachella Valley’s Ryker Evans (2023), Syracuse’s Yanni Gourde (2017) and Chicago’s Jason Krog (2008) as the only players in the last two decades with 10 points in a Finals series. Players stepped in and out of Malhotra’s lineup at different points across 24 games and five series, sometimes because of an injury, sometimes for a different look to throw at opponents.
Minutes later, Šilovs cradled the Jack A. Butterfield Trophy as the most valuable player of the Calder Cup Playoffs. The Canucks lined up across the blue line. Wouters accepted the Calder Cup from AHL President and CEO Scott Howson, raised it, and was mobbed by his teammates. Wouters skated the Cup and then handed it to John Stevens, a member of Abbotsford’s inaugural 2021-22 team who had been out injured since February. It was then passed to defenseman Guillaume Brisebois, whose tenure with the Vancouver Canucks organization goes back to 2017.
On and on the celebration went, as Canucks regulars, extras, coaches and staff members all had a chance to take the Calder Cup for a spin.
“The reason that we’re here right now celebrating is their commitment to do it the right way,” Malhotra said, “and their insatiable appetite for winning got them here. This series was no different. Coming back into a hostile environment like this, going down two goals, to show the resilience that we did to come through in the end, that is this group to a T.”
Blais, a 2019 Stanley Cup champion with the St. Louis Blues, spent the entire season in the AHL, the first time that had happened since his 2016-17 rookie year with the Chicago Wolves. He’s fighting to keep his NHL career going, and he knows the bond that comes with a championship.
“I couldn’t be more proud of all the guys,” Blais said. “We’re all going to be champions forever together, and everyone’s going to remember that.”
Abbotsford’s championship run nearly fizzled before it had barely started. The Canucks faced elimination in a first-round series with Tucson.
“The first round was a tough test for us,” Šilovs said. “We had to raise our level of physical play, and I think that was a great opponent to play against. It raised our level, and we managed to out-compete other teams.”
They came through that Tucson test. Round by round, they took care of the Coachella Valley Firebirds, Colorado Eagles, Texas Stars and finally, through six more demanding games, Charlotte.
Said Malhotra, “They earned everything that they got this year.”
On the American Hockey League beat for two decades, TheAHL.com features writer Patrick Williams also currently covers the league for NHL.com and FloSports and is a regular contributor on SiriusXM NHL Network Radio. He was the recipient of the AHL’s James H. Ellery Memorial Award for his outstanding coverage of the league in 2016.
