Through 72 regular season games the Abbotsford Canucks established a new AHL record by allowing zero shorthanded goals.
Contrast that statistic with Monday (June 2) night's game three of the Western Conference Finals against the Texas Stars, which saw the club give up two shorthanded goals in about 25 minutes.
Those pair of goals and two other power play markers by Texas sealed the night for the Canucks, as they fell 5-2 to the Stars in Cedar Park, Tex.
Wolanin on the power play, 1-0 Abbotsford (how did they manage to score a PPG without everyone in the building yelling SHOOT) pic.twitter.com/b7HQ7wZPL8
— Ben Lypka (@BenLypka) June 3, 2025
Abbotsford's Christian Wolanin opened the scoring at 7:41 of the first period with a power play goal, but just two minutes later the game two villain Kole Lind evened the game up with a power play goal of his own. The special teams flurry continued near the end of the period when Matej Blumel scored with the man advantage and then shorthanded 92 seconds apart to give Texas the 3-1 lead.
Canucks forward Linus Karlsson added another power play goal with 22 seconds left in the first and Abbotsford only trailed by one after 20 minutes. The Canucks were out shot 18-7 in the first and were unable to generate many quality chances.
Karlsson with the tip on a Bains shot, 3-2 now late pic.twitter.com/e1Hp2DRbvW
— Ben Lypka (@BenLypka) June 3, 2025
That trend continued in the second and the Stars went back up by two when Antonio Stanges scored his second of this series at 11:00. Shots were 7-7 in the middle frame, but Canucks goalie Arturs Silovs faced the the more dangerous chances and was forced to make some big saves. The first two periods saw Abbotsford struggle to create offence down low.
Shot chart tells the story. Abbotsford has been unable to do anything down low pic.twitter.com/DHFyR9gXs0
— Ben Lypka (@BenLypka) June 3, 2025
Texas scored a man down again at 5:25 of the third when Michael Karow pounced on a Linus Karlsson turnover and wired a shot past Silovs. The Canucks strung together a few dominant shifts in the third, but couldn't beat Stars goalie Remi Poirier. He made 22 saves to record the win. Silovs stopped 31 shots in the loss, but poor play in front of him led to a lot of the Stars offence.
Karlsson coughs up the puck and Texas scores ANOTHER SHG. Reminder, Abbotsford allowed zero in 72 regular season games pic.twitter.com/zWWXCLS0iY
— Ben Lypka (@BenLypka) June 3, 2025
Four Canucks players (Jonathan Lekkerimaki, Max Sasson, Sammy Blais and Christian Wolanin) finished the game at -2. Karlsson led all Canucks players with five shots. The last time Abbotsford allowed two power play goals in one game was all the way back on April 6 vs. the Laval Rocket. They had only allowed one power play goal in the playoffs before Monday.
One key returning player for Texas was defenceman Alex Petrovic, who played an outstanding positional game and took away a lot of space from Canucks forwards. He finished a game-best +3 and also recorded a shot. Petrovic was reassigned to Texas after the Dallas Stars were eliminated from the NHL playoffs by Edmonton on Saturday (May 31).
The only roster change for Abbotsford was forward Aatu Raty out and Ty Glover in. Raty left game two early after suffering an undisclosed injury.
Rematch Wednesday. pic.twitter.com/lobF4ITwsQ
— X - Abbotsford Canucks (@abbycanucks) June 3, 2025
Blumel, Arttu Hyry, Cameron Hughes and Karow all had two point nights for the Stars. A reported crowd of 6,325 took in the game.
The game three result guarantees that a game five will occur in Texas on Friday (June 6). Game four is set for Wednesday (June 4) at 5 p.m. Abbotsford time.
