The Abbotsford Canucks will take on the top-seeded Colorado Eagles in the Pacific Division Finals of the Calder Cup Playoffs starting at home on Friday night.
Game-2 will take place at the Abbotsford Centre on Sunday evening before the best-of-five series moves to Blue Arena in Loveland for the duration starting with Game-3 on Wednesday, May 21st.
The Canucks relied on a veteran crew with NHL experience to finish off the Coachella Valley Firebirds with a 2-0 win on Friday night. Arturs Silovs made 29 saves for the shut-out.
The 3-1 series victory gives Vancouver minor league bragging rights over their nearest NHL neighbour, the Seattle Kraken. The Firebirds had reached the Calder Cup Final the last two springs.
Not this time around.
The goal scorers in the deciding fourth game were Max Sasson, with 29 games of experience in the big show, and Linus Karlsson with 27. The assists in the game came from 28-year-old winger Sammy Blais, who won a Stanley Cup with the St. Louis Blues in 2019, 31-year-old forward Phil Di Giuseppe, with 302 NHL games under his belt, and a 21-year-old D-man Kirill Kudryavtsev, who’s played twice in the NHL.
Just to give one an idea of the balance the Abby line-up possesses.
By the way, Blais leads the Calder Cup playoffs with eight points.
Silovs, thrust into a playoff role for the big club last year, has a 1.74 goals against average, a .935 saves percentage, and two shut-outs this postseason.
The Eagles will be a formidable foe. They edged the 2nd-place Canucks by two points in the regular season, earning a 1st-round playoff bye. They beat the San Jose Barracuda 3-1 in the second round. Tye Felhaber and Jayson Megna both tallied six points in the four game series.
Abbotsford Centre start times are 7 pm on Friday and 6 pm for Game-2 on Sunday.
