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The Abbotsford Canucks could clinch a playoff spot with a win tonight (plus an AHL playoff format refresher)

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Photo credit:Abbotsford Canucks on Twitter
Faber
By Faber
11 months ago
Canucks playoff hockey is on the horizon.
And down the highway.
The Abbotsford Canucks have a chance to clinch a playoff spot tonight with a win in Bakersfield as they face the Condors.
Abbotsford has been playing well lately and has not given up more than two goals in a game over their last five outings.
The goaltending has been strong and tonight’s game may be an indicator of how the team will elect to use their goaltenders for the playoffs. The reason why tonight’s decision in net matters is that many of the AHL games are back-to-backs, and with Spencer Martin and Arturs Silovs down on the farm, it’s fine to play one guy on a Friday game while giving the other guy the Saturday night game.
Tonight is one of the rare middle-of-the-week games with no back-to-back, it is somewhat of a standalone game with some rest before the weekend. We probably shouldn’t take it as gospel for what we are going to see in the crease for the playoffs, but with just 10 games remaining in the season, whichever of Martin or Silovs gets the start tonight, may end up being ‘the guy’ for Abby in the playoffs.
Let’s dive into the AHL playoffs a bit, with help from theAHL.com.
The Canucks currently sit third in the Pacific Division standings.
The top seven teams make the AHL playoffs.
The top seed automatically advances to the Division Semifinals while the second-ranked team plays the seventh-ranked team, the third-ranked team plays the sixth-ranked team, and the fourth-ranked team plays the fifth-ranked team. These three series will be a best-of-three series with the higher seed hosting all of the necessary games. This is how the Abbotsford Canucks made the playoffs last season but didn’t host a playoff game. They were swept in two games.
Here’s a graphic from theAHL.com on how the playoffs break down in the AHL.
Abbotsford is on the cusp of clinching a playoff spot and the hope is that they can go on a longer run than last season and get some playoff hockey for Canucks fans.
The additions of Christian Wolanin, Vasily Podkolzin, and Phil Di Giuseppe will be big for the Abbotsford Canucks when they head into the playoffs. All three of these players have spent time in the AHL this season and head coach Jeremy Colliton will surely be happy when his team receives a boost of talent for both his forward and defence groups.
As always, we will have you covered with the biggest news from the AHL as well as in-depth coverage of the prospects playing well in the AHL.
There was a big portion of this week’s video version of the Blackfish Prospects Report spent on the young players in the AHL.
You can watch that video here:

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Abbotsford is in action at 6:30 tonight versus the Bakersfield Condors.

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