The Canucks fall 4-2 against the Henderson Silver Knights
The road trip continues for the Abbotsford Canucks as they are down in Nevada, taking on the Henderson Silver Knights.
Nikita Tolopilo gets his 9th start in the last 14 games for the Canucks and he will face off against Jiri Patera at the other end. Nick Cicek and Jett Woo, the defensive duo, stand tall in front of Tolopilo. A change to the rest of the defensive pairing as Matt Irwin with pair up with Filip Johansson, and Cole McWard lines with Akito Hirose.
Up front, the steady forward line remains unchanged with Sheldon Dries centering Tristen Nielsen, and Linus Karlsson, followed by John Stevens, Arshdeep Bains, and Aidan McDonough. Marc Gatcomb finds himself with familiar faces Aatu Räty and Chase Wouters, and rounding out the lineup are Cooper Walker, Jermaine Loewen, and Ty Glover.
The Canucks were looking for a big win tonight, as the push for the playoffs continue. The Canucks headed to an early powerplay, but just as the man advantage expired, Cooper Walker picked up the feed from Marc Gatcomb and was able to fire one past Patera to notch his first AHL career goal, as well as open the scoring for the Canucks. They had another powerplay opportunity but were just shy of capitalizing. Late in the period, Jack Bischoff was able to notch his 3rd goal of the season as he sent the puck past Tolopilo, and the game was tied at 1. The Canucks found themselves on their first penalty kill of the game, and they would end the first period and start the second, down a man.
In the second period, the Canucks put their penalty kill to use, and it was very successful. However, they found themselves needing to kill off a 6-second 5 on 3. Unfortunately, Jake Bischoff was able to score his second of the night, but fortunately, the goal happened just after Tristen Nielsen had stepped out of the box, meaning that the second penalty was killed off. The Canucks couldn’t catch a break and found themselves playing 100% defensively, unable to register any shots on net. That was until Arshdeep Bains battled hard to keep the puck inside the offensive blue line. He sent the puck cross-ice to Aidan McDonough, who was able to tie the game up at 2, late in the third, and notch his 6th of the season. Once again, the teams were knotted up at 2, heading into the final frame.
The final frame was scoreless for a while, with both teams struggling to register shots on net. Just before the 10-minute mark, a lucky bounce, in favour of the Silver Knights, passed Tolopilo, and the goal was credited to Brendan Brisson who put Henderson up 3-2. With just over 3 minutes to play, Nikita Tolopilo fled the net to get an extra man on the ice, but Kaedsn Korczak got a hold of the puck and dumped it straight to the back of the Canucks net.
The Canucks lost this one 4-2, but a rematch is set for tomorrow at 3 pm PT. Abbotsford returns home after tomorrow's game for 4 straight, against the Bakersfield Condors and Henderson Silver Knights.
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