They did it, folks!

And they didn’t even need Arturs Silovs to pitch a shutout for them to do it! It’s the first time in this Calder run that the club hasn’t needed a shutout to clinch a series!

Though game five didn’t go Abbotsford’s way, Friday’s disappointing overtime loss did not deter Manny Malhotra from returning with the same lineup that boosted his club to a 3-1 series lead last Wednesday.

I wasn’t on Farmies duty when the last lineup change happened, so I’ll say it now: I really liked Malhotra’s decision to pair Klimovich with Bains and Mueller. Klimovich’s most significant turnaround as a player came when playing on a line with Bains. I think the two of them pair well together. Bains has a brain for defence and creative plays around the net, and Klimovich has the shot and the creativity in spades. Klimovich steps up his defensive play whenever he is with Bains, and Bains’ offensive juices really start flowing when he’s paired with a lethal shooter like Klimovich.

Sunday night’s Western Conference Final victory resulted from that duo finding that chemistry again with a speedy, two-way center in Ty Mueller to feed off their energy. They were creating set play after set play, throwing hits, making terrific defensive reads in the d-zone, and giving their team a jolt of momentum every time they stepped onto the ice. They were massive for Abbotsford on Sunday.

Let’s get into the game and see how Sunday’s history-making victory played out!

Jett Woo continued his strong playoffs, hitting everything that moved on a deep, forechecking play. Woo’s physicality set the tone early, and his linemates fed off that initial pressure. The speedy Max Sasson was all over his checks below the goal line, forcing a brutal turnover into the slot for Phil Di Giuseppe for the game’s first dangerous look.

The game stream died immediately after. But the score was zero-zero upon the reset, so I assume nothing interesting happened whatsoever.

The ‘bad stream’ vibes bled into the club’s play, with Sasson taking a slashing penalty while defending in the d-zone.

The Stars’ power play was dominant in Texas, converting four times on just eleven opportunities over three games. Fortunately, the home team’s PK returned to its elite ways, denying Texas any shots on goal and stifling their entries with smart and simple poke-checks at all chances possible.

Late on the kill, Linus Karlsson stabbed the puck away from a mohawking Antonio Stranges, gaining possession for Abbotsford and killing the remaining seconds of Sasson’s penalty.

After a string of back-and-forth o-zone cycles yielding a handful of shots on goal, Di Giuseppe sent Abbotsford to their first power play of the night, drawing a textbook tripping penalty against Texas’ Luke Krys.

Abbotsford’s first power play unit featured Arshdeep Bains, Tristen Nielsen, Christian Wolanin, Ty Mueller, and Karlsson. Though the club registered a trio of attempts toward Magnus Hellberg, neither were that threatening.

Abbotsford’s second power play unit featuring Kirill Kudryavtsev, Sammy Blais, Danila Klimovich, Chase Wouters, and Sasson was as unsuccessful.

The club’s inability to connect hurt, but Nate Smith taking a reckless boarding penalty minutes into the return to 5-on-5 hurt more. Ironically, at the end of this sequence, Akito Hirose was bearhugged headfirst into the boards while chasing down a dump-in (no call).

Abby’s starting PK group of Wouters, Mueller, Guillaume Brisebois, and Victor Mancini looked sharp. Mancini picked off a cross-ice pass and sprang Mueller up the ice for a quick shorthanded try.

Arturs Silovs was dialled in as the Texas Stars’ lethal power play group hit their stride. A phenomenally-timed blocker-save against Matej Blumel kept things even.

With Hirose out of action, Kudryavtsev slid into the PK, a role that he’s proven capable of but one that doesn’t see him as a go-to fixture for Malhotra. That lack of experience showed when Kyle Looft sprang Curtis McKenzie past Kudryavtsev in the dying seconds of the Smith penalty. Fortunately, Silovs was aces again with the blocker-punch save.

Across all situations, the Abbotsford Canucks have outscored their opposition 15-2 in Kudryavtsev’s minutes, so I wouldn’t worry about this one sequence all that much.

Of all the baffling sequences I’ve seen while covering the AHL club, this one might take the cake.

With two minutes left in the opening frame, Blais cut to the middle off an entry pass from Jujhar Khaira and rifled a shot over Hellberg’s glove that rang off the crossbar and bounced hard off of the goal line, where it was then swept out of the crease by Kyle Looft, who made a “no goal” arm gesture.

The Abbotsford arena team sounded the goal lights, but the ref agreed with Looft’s assertion: No goal.

Every Canuck stopped playing. The Stars did not.

With the Canucks’ forward trio watching and waiting, the Stars raced up the ice for a two-on-one and an easy tap-in for Blumel to make it 1-nothing for the visitors.

The Abbotsford home crowd were not happy.

Then, they saw the overhead angle, which cleared everything up.

The crossbar-to-flat-roller-off-the-goal-line has to be one of the most fortunate bounces I’ve ever seen.

Not often do you see every forward stop skating, thinking that play will stop in the absence of any whistles.

Fortunately, Hirose returned to play shortly after Blumel’s goal. Unfortunately, the club went into the middle frame, tied in shots and down by a goal.

Abbotsford started the second period planted heavily on the backfoot. The lone moment of positivity came from Ty Mueller, who drilled Jack Becker into the boards while chasing a loose puck.

Truthfully, the second period was a miserable start for Abbotsford. The first four minutes saw Abbotsford stuck inside the d-zone facing shot after shot.

Bains, Mueller, and Klimovich (BMK line) were the trio to break up the monotony. After a slick rush sequence sparked by Klimovich that ended with Mueller nearly equalizing off a rebound chance from the right circle, Abbotsford seemed to get back to playing their game.

After a successful cycle from the Di Giuseppe, Sasson, and Karlsson trio, the BMK line took over with an equally successful cycle. A stick lift disrupted Klimovich’s shot attempt from the slot, so he responded in kind with a heavy hit on Looft to end his shift.

Klimovich has had a tough time finding minutes these playoffs, but his work with Bains and Mueller gave Malhotra plenty of reason to lean on him moving forward. When I think of Klimovich’s playstyle, “finishing every check with a big hit” isn’t the first thing that springs to mind—credit to the young Belarussian. If not using his size to bullrush the puck through the neutral zone for his linemates, he was using his size to harm those who dared interrupt his perpetual hunt for the highlight-reel play.

With less than seven minutes to go, the Stars’ fourth line capitalized against the Canucks’ first line, putting Abbotsford in an even deeper hole to climb out of.

It was a tough sequence for Mancini, who looked reticent to abandon the netfront with noise from Di Giuseppe and Texas’ Matthew Seminoff rattling behind him. Caught in no-mans-land, Texas’ Harrison Scott was gifted a free lane toward the first AHL Playoff goal of his career.

Perhaps it was frustration setting in, as the typically calm Arshdeep Bains found himself engaged in a post-whistle bruhaha with Texas’ Luke Krys, sending the game to a rare 4-on-4 with three minutes left.

Maybe it was the two minutes spent thinking about what he did, but eight seconds after stepping out of the box, Bains broke the Canucks’ goalscoring drought with a crash-bang rebound on a Wolanin shot that crucially halved Texas’ lead.

The Farm finished the middle frame up 23-21 in shots but still down on the scoreboard 2-1.

To say that the third period would be huge for the home team would be an understatement.

The Canucks must have caught a glimpse of the closer to my 2nd-period recap because they came out buzzing to start the finale frame. The BMK line hammered Hellberg with looks inside the opening minute.

Klimovich looked like a man possessed, driving into the offensive zone and cutting to the middle for a wrister off of Hellberg’s pads and wide. Hellberg’s rebound control was noticeably sharp all game, but the BMK line’s early pressure had him fighting the puck in a major way.

Klimovich chopped a stick out of Luke Krys’ hands, then crushed Cameron Hughes with a hit that had him out of action on the ice.

The work toward setting the tone early paid off for Abbotsford, with Jujhar Khaira equalizing for Abbotsford off a terrific cross-ice feed from Nate Smith, set up by a handoff on the zone entry from Kudryavtsev.

The setup from Kudryavtsev improved his on-ice control of goalscoring at 5-on-5 to an absurd 13 for and two against. Kudryavtsev’s plus-11 differential is the best among all Abbotsford skaters this playoff run.

The Canucks didn’t take their foot off the gas either. The BMK line went out there and nearly broke the tie with a fantastic setup from Bains to Klimovich inside the slot.

Seemingly every shift, Bains and Klimovich were connecting for scoring chances. By the game’s conclusion, the BMK line combined for ten of the club’s 40 total shots on goal.

On one entry, Klimovich tried to play a pass behind him off his skate, which drew a loud “OOOH!” from the home crowd—the dude was buzzing.

Wanting to improve on his already ridiculous on-ice goal differential numbers at 5-on-5, Kudryavtsev kept an offensive zone cycle alive long enough for Sasson to give Abbotsford their first lead of the game off a point shot from Hirose.

Looking to keep the sequence alive, Kudryavtsev holds possession in the o-zone and simply plays the puck below the goal line to Di Giuseppe with a floater pass wide of the goal. Di Giuseppe collects and resets with a pass to the line for Hirose, who rifles the puck into traffic. I’m not sure how Sasson managed to get a tip on Hirose’s shot or how that puck squeaked through all those bodies and past Hellberg, but it was a brilliant culmination of everything Abbotsford was doing right in the period.

When the buzzer finally rang, Texas managed just four shots on goal in a must-win game.

The Canucks were suffocating in every respect. They didn’t need power plays or good bounces or good luck, they worked for every advantage they received. That third-period comeback came thanks to the BMK line’s unbelievable work against the Stars.

Despite losing an o-zone draw, the BMK line got back to work below the goal line, resulting in a high-danger backhand chance for Mueller at point-blank range.

After two shots in the opening 45 seconds, the Stars registered just two more over the final nineteen minutes. The Canucks’ created their own momentum and forced Texas into a dump-and-chase playstyle that they didn’t have the legs to execute properly.

For the final five minutes, the Canucks were content to tie the puck along the boards whenever and wherever possible. The Farm really made the Stars work for their looks, which were few and far between.

With two minutes left in the game, Texas’ head coach Neil Graham pulled Hellberg for the extra attacker.

With 40 seconds remaining, Hirose executed a board-and-out play to Di Giuseppe, who drained his empty netter attempt off the left goalpost.

Our old friend Kole Lind elected to let a rim-around-the-boards sail out into neutral territory, right onto the tape of Arshdeep Bains, whose backhander sailed over Jack Becker and into the empty net.

The decision not to play the puck there might be why no one was taking Kole Lind.

Tough to say.

With 35 seconds left, this one was over, and the Abbotsford Canucks were on their way to a Calder Cup Playoff Final for the first time in franchise history.

Realistically, you could have given anyone on the team the third star honours, but I had to give it to Malhotra for a few reasons. Firstly, for reuniting Klim and Bains and letting them cook. Secondly, for taking a team to its first Calder Cup Finals in just his first season as a head coach. And lastly, for whatever rallying speech he had after the second period that got this club to dial in as hard as any team has ever dialled in for that third period.

The Abbotsford Canucks get a nice little break before the Finals commence this Friday, June 13th.

The Abbotsford Canucks will play two games on the road to start the series against the Charlotte Checkers before returning home to Abbotsford for a three-game set.