The Abbotsford Canucks are one win away from facing the Charlotte Checkers in the 2025 Calder Cup Finals. In Game 4, after multiple lead changes, Abbotsford took a 5–4 2OT win against the Texas Stars. Tristen Nielsen had two goals, while Linus Karlsson, Victor Mancini, and Danila Klimovich also found the back of the net. Artūrs Šilovs stopped 27 of the 31 shots Texas threw at him.
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Abbotsford iced a different lineup tonight, taking Jonathan Lekkerimäki and Sammy Blais out for Klimovich and Dino Kambeitz. Klimovich’s last game was Game 4 of the Pacific Division Finals against the Colorado Eagles, in which he recorded one shot and two penalty minutes. Kambeitz’s last game was also against Colorado, with the forward putting up one shot in the team’s 5–3 loss at home. He had two great chances in-tight during overtime, with one only inches away from sliding into the net.
Texas came out firing early into the period, getting on the board first with a goal from Matěj Blümel less than five minutes in. In a fortunate turn of events, Abbotsford evened up the score almost five minutes after with Karlsson tallying his ninth goal of the playoffs to take the league lead over Kole Lind. This was Karlsson’s fifth point in five straight games. The AHL Canucks added another tally 15:33 into the period, taking the lead thanks to Nielsen.
At one point during the first period, Texas captain Curtis McKenzie ran into Šilovs in the crease, knocking the Abbotsford goaltender down. Šilovs stayed down for a while, but after a quick commercial break he was back up and ready to go. He went on to stop the rest of Texas’ shots during the first period, but was unable to prevent goals from Jack Becker and Cameron Hughes later on in the second. With the score 4–3 in Abbotsford’s favour towards the end of the second period, Šilovs made a remarkable stop to keep his team’s lead alive.
Despite the close score, it was all Texas throughout the majority of the game. Even with the score tied at various points, the Stars dominated Abbotsford in shots with 22 by the end of the second period. In contrast, the AHL Canucks had 11. Even so, Abbotsford escaped the second frame with a 4–3 lead.
The Stars yanked goaltender Remi Poirier in the third period, replacing him with Magnus Hellberg. This came after Poirier let in four goals on 11 shots against, including the two scored only two minutes between one-another near the end of the second period. However, Abbotsford flipped the script during the third period, keeping the Stars from registering more than one shot for the majority of the final frame. The AHL Canucks’ hounding pressure and careful sticks were good, but unfortunately not enough to keep the Stars from tying the game 4–4 with 19 seconds left in the period.
Abbotsford had a couple of good chances to start overtime, with Jujhar Khaira lobbing the puck across the crease but being unable to successfully connect with anyone on the other side. During the first extra frame, Klimovich levelled Lind with a cross-check that was not called, but could have been detrimental if it had been. After lots of chances for the AHL Canucks in the first overtime period, Abbotsford was awarded a power play to start the second extra frame after McKenzie toppled Šilovs for the second time in tonight’s game.
While Abbotsford wasn’t able to end the game while on the power play, they still took home the 5–4 victory with a tally from Klimovich a little over three minutes into the second overtime period. The win gives them a 3–1 series lead heading into Game 5, which will be played in Texas.
Scoring Summary:
1st Period:
4:18 - TEX: Matěj Blümel (6) from Cameron Hughes and Kyle Capobianco
8:56 - ABB: Linus Karlsson (9) from Max Sasson and Phil Di Giuseppe
15:33 - ABB: Tristen Nielsen (3) from Kirill Kudryavstev and Chase Wouters
2nd Period:
7:51 - TEX: Jack Becker (2) from Antonio Stranges and Kole Lind
9:28 - TEX: Cameron Hughes (4) from Michael Karow and Matěj Blümel
14:57 - ABB: Victor Mancini (3) from Linus Karlsson and Christian Wolanin
16:55 - ABB: Tristen Nielsen (4)
3rd Period:
19:41 - TEX: Justin Hryckowian (8) from Kyle Capobianco and Kole Lind
2nd Overtime:
3:21 - ABB: Danila Klimovich (2) from Victor Mancini and Christian Wolanin
Game 5: Friday, June 6 @ 5:00 pm PT at H-E-B Center at Cedar Park
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