Hot off their best win streak of the season, the Abbotsford Canucks look to return to their winning ways with a three-game roadie down the west coast!

The Farm capped off their six-game homestand with polar opposite results against the visiting Manitoba Moose.

On Saturday, Abbotsford crushed the Meese, outshooting their Central Division rival 23-15 at 5v5 en route to a 7-0 victory.

On Sunday, the two teams played much tighter hockey. Though the Canucks held the Meese to 18 total shots, they could not match their blistering offence in back-to-backs, losing 2-1 to break their winning streak.

Over their six-game homestand, the Farm dominated at 5v5! Abbotsford outshot their opponents by a combined 134-108 margin while outscoring them 19-12 at 5v5 and 31-16 overall.

Christian Wolanin and Lane Pederson led the way with 11 points each across all situations. Danila Klimovich led the team in 5v5 scoring, with two goals and an assist. Phil Di Giuseppe finished the homestand in a four-way tie for third in points but led with a team-high 17 shots on goal.

Though the homestand ended on a bit of a downer, the Farm has a great chance to pick up where they left off with three games against two of the worst teams in the AHL’s Pacific Division.

First up for Abbotsford is a one-game visit to the Anaheim Ducks AHL affiliate San Deigo Gulls.

The Gulls are bad.

Like, really bad.

The Gulls rank dead last in the AHL standings by points, points percentage, and regulation wins. Through 24 games played, San Diego ranks 31st in shots allowed per game, 20th in team save percentage, 31st in goals scored per game, and 7th in goals allowed per game with the 27th-ranked power play in the AHL.

On Wednesday night, they enter their matchup with Abbotsford on the worst losing streak in the AHL, having lost their last eight straight.

At home this season, the Gulls have accumulated a grand total of two victories while being outscored 43-24.

The Canucks have been quite mid while on the road this season. Through 10 roadies, the Farm holds a 4-5-1-0 record while being outscored 42-28 overall.

Regardless, there should be no excuse for the Canucks not to throttle the Gulls.

They’re just so bad that anything less than two points should be considered a missed opportunity.

Like the San Diego Gulls, the Vegas Golden Knights’ AHL affiliate is in pretty rough shape.

Through 24 games played, the Silver Knights sit third-last in the AHL with the 3rd-worst rate of goals scored per game and the 4th-worst power play.

However, unlike the Gulls, many of the Silver Knights’ woes appear to be tied to a simple inability to score goals!

Despite their lowly position in the AHL standings, Henderson holds the 2nd-best penalty kill, tied 2nd in the league for shorthanded goals scored. Overall, they’ve conceded the 9th-fewest shots per game while getting the 15th-best team save percentage across all situations.

Both Abbotsford and Henderson sit neck in neck in terms of shot generation.

Where do the two Pacific Division rivals differentiate? Abbotsford is rocking the 8th-best team shooting percentage in the AHL at 11.45%, whereas Henderson sits 2nd-last in the AHL with a team shooting percentage of 8.36%. If the Silver Knights were shooting at Abbotsford’s 11.45% clip, they would have scored an additional 23 goals from their 754 shots taken!

The percentages favoured Abbotsford over their recent homestand, converting on 18.3% of all shots — 31 goals on 169 shots — after converting on just 9.2% of shots through their first 16 games played.

Whether it’s better systems, power play, luck, or Lane Pederson, the Canucks are rolling into Las Vegas on an impressive “finishing heater.”

The Silver Knights are on a three-game winning streak but are 4-7-0-1 at home overall.

It might take some more “percentage luck,” but the Abbotsford Canucks should be able to kick off another winning streak with this road trip.

The series against Henderson will be very close and mostly decided at 5v5. Expect the Canucks’ power play to struggle to convert against the elite penalty kill of the Silver Knights. Depending on how the team chooses to use ECHL PTO Jake Kupsky on this road trip, fatigue may also factor in the results from a goaltending side. Arturs Silovs was the Canucks’ starter for five of their six games on the most recent homestand and has been the starter for six of the team’s last eight.

Assuming the team can get Silovs at least one game of rest on this upcoming three-in-four road trip, the Canucks should come away with at least four points from three games.