It was a Friday night match made in heaven.

With near-identical season records, you couldn’t find a more evenly matched game if you tried. On top of that, each team came in allowing 71 goals on the year, while each was sporting identical four-game win streaks.

All this to say: someone was going home upset, and unfortunately, it wouldn’t be the visiting team.

The Abbotsford Canucks held play for most of the game, finishing with the edge in shots. However, with a few third-period breakdowns, the Roadrunners got the best of the red-hot baby Canucks in game one of a weekend doubleheader.

Here’s how it went down.

Räty – Aman – Lekkerimäki
Bains – Mueller – Klimovich
Blais – Smith – Wouters
Glover – Stevens – Kambeitz

Pettersson – Woo
Brisebois – Friedman
Wolanin – McWard

Silovs

After missing 21 games, Sammy Blais returned to the lineup to make his Abbotsford Centre debut. He formed a third line with captain Chase Wouters and former Tuscon Roadrunner Nate Smith. Also back in the lineup was Danila Klimovich, who returned after missing three games.

After a quick NHL stint, Mark Friedman drew back in on the backend, leaving Kirill Kudryavstev as the odd-man out for tonight’s game.

Although Nikita Tolopilo was riding a two-game shutout streak from the weekend prior, he got the rest in this game, which meant it was Arturs Silovs’s crease for game one.

The Abbotsford Canucks came into the opening period on a mission. Judging by how they played leading up to this game, no one in the building was shocked.

The game opened with the team’s fourth line setting the tone, connecting for the game’s first terrific chance.

Chase Wouters gained the zone, cutback and found Ty Glover at the top of the circles. Being the power forward he is, he sliced through the middle and made a terrific move, nearly waiting out and sliding the puck under Matthew Villalta’s pad.

That play brought the home team to their first power play of the game.

PP1: Aatu Räty, Nils Aman, Arshdeep Bains, Jonathan Lekkerimäki and Christian Wolanin

The first unit dominated their time and spent nearly the full two-minute stretch inside the Roadrunners zone, grabbing three shots on net.

The Swedish star, Jonathan Lekkerimäki, was feeling it in the early stages of this one and grabbed one of those for his first of five shots in the period.

Minutes after they failed to capitalize, Nils Aman made a tremendous individual effort to spin and feed Aatu Räty, who delivered a quick one-touch pass to Lekkerimäki for a quick two-on-one.

He fired the initial chance and sent the rebound directly off the post, coming inches from opening the game’s scoring.

Not long after, fellow rookie Ty Mueller put matters into his own hands, driving the net to collect a strong chance of his own. Following up on the play, the Canucks worked it around for Wolanin to come up with the puck.

Unfortunately, he sent the shot directly into the behind of a fallen Mueller, who paid the ultimate price for taking the puck to the net. He was fine, though.

The pressure continued—this time from the third line. Former Roadrunner Nate Smith nearly found a stretched-out Sammy Blais with a soft saucer pass. If successful, that would have been Blais’s second goal of the season, but first at the Abbotsford Centre.

Despite the healthy dose of pressure, the Canucks just couldn’t find the opening goal.

Cue the second powerplay of the game.

With the puck being cycled around, Lekkerimäki took the Wolanin feed and did what he does best – snipe the corner.

It did not take him long to unleash the snap, which beat Villalta clean on the far side shelf for his team-leading 11th goal of his rookie campaign.

The team had enjoyed nearly two full penalties but had yet to find a need to deploy their second unit.

At this point, the Canucks had things all figured out. Until they didn’t.

The next four minutes were spent taking three consecutive penalties, forcing them to kill back-to-back five-on–three penalty kills to wrap up the period.

Luckily, their sixth-placed penalty kill came to play and held the Runners to just three shots and no goals to head down the tunnel with a 1-0 lead after 20 minutes.

The middle frame was much less action-packed, with few high-end chances being tested.

Cole McWard came out of the gate strong, though, clearly eating his Wheaties during the intermission. He was on a mission and had directed several shots on net early in the period.

One of them did not find the goaltender but nearly resulted in Sammy Blais — who also had a strong period — banging in the rebound with hand.

The Roadrunners felt much more engaged in this one and tested Arturs Silovs with several shots in the middle stages. The Latvian stood tall, setting aside most.

That was until Tuscon finally figured things out.

With Mark Friedman acting as a perfect standstill mannequin, blocking any chance of Silovs seeing the shot, Hunter Drew fired a relatively easygoing wrist shot to even the score.

The goal snapped nearly 150 minutes of shutout hockey for the Abbotsford Canucks. Luckily for Nikita Tolopilo, who’s likely to start on Saturday, his streak remains alive and well.

Midway through the period, Arhsdeep Bains took his third minor penalty of the young game. This time, he took his counterpart with him, as Kailer Yamamoto was handed the embellishment to go with it.

Freshly out of the box, Bains redeemed himself, though.

Digging down low, he collected the Cole McWard rebound from behind the net and set up Danila Klimovich with a cheeky dish. Klimovich made no mistake, shovelling the puck upstairs for his 10th goal of the season. The Belurrisan has been scoring goals all year, and after missing three consecutive games, he hasn’t missed a beat.

With the secondary assist, McWard was rewarded for a relatively strong period, putting him up to ninth points on the season. He’s now on pace to shatter his previous career highs (17), firing at a 25-point clip.

As for Bains, he picked up his second assist in the game, giving him back-to-back multipoint games and seven points over his last four games. He’s made the most of his short time in the AHL this season and is now firing at a 61-point clip for the year. Of course, that would surpass his AHL All-Star numbers from last year, where he hit 55 on the year.

Like the beginning of the period, the final few minutes brought little to no noteworthy action.

The third period was the octane action we were looking for, as both teams fought to extend their four-game win streaks. But the Canucks were 11-1-0-1 when leading after two periods heading into the game, so destiny was on their side, right?

Ty Glover looked to make things happen early, turning on the jet from his own end and nearly catching his own rebound chance.

He didn’t, but probably should have drawn a penalty, as the netminder caught him up high with a high stick.

The play went on.

Despite giving up the goal in the second period, Silovs had been tracking the puck well. He made several stops early in the period to keep his Canucks up a goal.

In the next play, Canucks Nation got themselves a scare after Lekkerimäki took an awkward collision to the arm and skated to the bench, wincing in pain.

Thank heavens, he did not go down the tunnel and returned for his next shift — nothing to see here, folks.

Looking to double their lead, Klimovich returned the favour from earlier in the game, sending Bains all alone. After beating out a Tuscon stick, he sent the puck above Villata’s shoulder but couldn’t beat the crossbar.

They would pay for that miss.

Minutes later, off a defensive end face-off, Elias Pettersson found himself hemmed in, eventually losing the puck to his opposition. From there, Austin Poganski would find Cameron Hebig in the slot before beating Silovs clean to even the score again.

Let’s be honest. You probably deserve the goal if you’re beating Elias Pettersson in a one-on-one battle in the corner.

But the Canucks’ instantly got their opportunity to regain that lead, with the Runners’ taking their second Delay of Game penalty of the game.

On that ensuing powerplay, they did what they could.

Lekkerimäki delivered a near-carbon copy opportunity from his opening goal. This time, the netminder would not be fooled.

But the best chance came at the hands of the penalty killers after the Roadrunners had intercepted a cross-ice feed to send them on a two-on-one. Silovs stretched out to get the pad on a cross-crease deke and even gobbled up the rebound.

But it wasn’t enough.

Hunter Drew was left all alone after receiving the pass just inside the blueline and snapped home his second goal of the game to give his team their first lead of the match.

With just five minutes remaining, that goal proved to be costly. The Canucks made a few last-minute attempts to find the equalizer but just couldn’t get enough juice to find it.

Goal – Tuscon 4-2 – Andrew Agozzino from Josh Doan (empty net)

The Roadrunners added one last goal to double their lead to snap the Canucks’ four-game win streak and extend theirs to five.

These two teams will play an afternoon matinée on Saturday, game two of a weekend doubleheader. The puck drops at 2:00 p.m. Pacific time at the Abbotsford Centre.