Nils Höglander scores cheeky shootout goal to give Abbotsford Canucks 2-1 win

Nils Höglander is remembering to do his dekes.

The 22-year-old winger pulled off a beautiful shootout maneuver to lead the Abbotsford Canucks to a 2-1 win over the Colorado Eagles to close out Abbotsford’s month of February. Here’s the goal in all its glory:

Höglander entered last night’s game in Colorado with nine points in his last nine games, and now has eight goals and 12 assists through 28 AHL games this season.

Colorado opened the scoring in the first period, but Surrey’s Arshdeep Bains scored his eighth goal of the season to tie things up at one late in the first. Phil Di Giuseppe and Linus Karlsson picked up assists on the goal. Di Giuseppe tallied eight shots — more than anyone else in the game — but both goalies were sharp throughout the final two frames and managed to force overtime tied at one apiece. OT solved nothing, so the Canucks and Eagles were headed for a shootout.

Spencer Martin turned aside all three attempts he faced, putting a nice bow on a 36-save performance that earned him first star honours in this one.

After appearing in 25 games at the NHL level under Bruce Boudreau this season, Höglander and Vasily Podkolzin were both sent down to Abbotsford to fine-tune some skills and regain their confidence after neither player managed to find success with Vancouver.

Podkolzin was called up to the big club, but Höglander has been tasked with spending some extra time getting his reps in at the AHL level in order to develop his 200-foot game.

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