You best believe it, Canucks fans…Your Abbotsford Canucks have won the 2025 Calder Cup!
After 61 days, five rounds, 24 games, 82 periods, in four different time zones, the Abbotsford ran the gauntlet that was the Calder Cup playoffs and were the team to hoist the trophy.
It wasn’t an easy road for the baby Canucks.
In Round 1, they battled against the lowest-seeded Tucson Roadrunners. As the second seed in the Pacific Division, all three games of this series were played in the Abbotsford Centre. The Canucks took Game 1, but dropped Game 2. This left a winner-take-all Game 3. But as he would do in many shutdown games on this run, goaltender Arturs Silovs shut the door, securing a 5-0 shutout victory to advance.
Round 2 was a little more intimidating, battling against the back-to-back Western Conference Champions, the Coachella Valley Firebirds. The Canucks would split their games in Coachella, but handled business back on home-ice, with yet another Silovs shutout in a close out game.
Round 3 was their first series without home-ice advantage, facing off against the only team that finished higher than them in the Pacific Division, the Colorado Eagles. This series was very evenly matched, as the two teams alternated games until Game 5, the closeout game. Where, yet again, Silovs stepped up and did not allow a puck past him, en route to the Western Conference Finals.
Now they venture outside of their division for their toughest challenge yet against the Texas Stars. The Stars had four of the top five point scorers heading into the series, but failed to find too many depth contributions from there. The Canucks earned home-ice advantage and took both opening games at home. They took a commanding 3-1 series lead after a Game 4 2OT victory, but couldn’t close it out in Game 5, extending the series back to Abbotsford, where the Canucks wrapped up the series in six games and punched their ticket to the franchises first Calder Cup Final.
Seven games left, with nothing else to play for but the privilege of hoisting the trophy.
The Canucks entered the series as the underdog as they were the road team. However, they had the benefit of playing more recently, which helped lead to their Game 1 double overtime victory. Abbotsford had an opportunity to take a commanding 2-0 series lead heading back to Canada, but this time dropped the overtime contest after being heavily outshot 42-13.
With the final three games in the Abbotsford Centre, the Canucks did not disappoint, as they bested Charlotte in Games 3 and 4, with a chance to win in it all in front of the Abbotsford faithful in overtime of Game 5. However, after a double re-direction, the Canucks were forced to pack their bags for one more trip to Charlotte.
After allowing the first two goals of Game 6, the Canucks scored three unanswered and took home their first Calder Cup Championship in franchise history. And as we only mentioned multiple times in this article, Arturs Silovs unsurprisingly took home the playoff MVP award, after posting a 16-7 record, with a 2.01 goals against average and a .931 save percentage, with five shutouts.
Of course, there’s a more in-depth read-up on this game in the Farmies! Stay tuned for that breakdown and congratulate your Abbotsford Canucks on their playoff run and Calder Cup Trophy!
