The Abbotsford Canucks have transformed the Abbotsford Centre into a fortress, enjoying a remarkable six-game winning streak stretched across three different opponents.

Their latest victims? The San Jose Barracuda. The visitors from California served as one of the teams in striking distance from the Canucks within the Pacific Division. And with a 13-8-0-1 all-time record against their rivals heading in, combined with some incredibly poised recent play, history – both long-term and recent – was very much on their side.

To help their case, the Canucks welcomed back several key players to their lineup, including their leading scorer (heading into the weekend) Ty Mueller and, for Sunday’s game, highly-touted prospect Jonathan Lekkerimäki.

Furthermore, the Canucks were fueled by the exceptional recent play of veterans Nils Åman and Linus Karlsson, who had been outright dominant during the homestand.

Let’s dive into how this exciting weekend unfolded.

The first game was a tense, low-scoring affair, and it took until a late power play for the deadlock to be broken.

Erik Brännström, showcasing his typical American League dominance, spun around his check on the blue line before firing a shot on net that Linus Karlsson deflected for his 11th goal of the season.

Brännström’s spin-o-rama moves and silky magic tricks have become a nightly occurrence in Abbotsford. This type of freewheeling hockey may not fly at the NHL level, but boy, is it effective and a major boost to this Abbotsford squad for a second-half playoff push.

Meanwhile, Nikita Tolopilo was doing his part, making 17 saves in the first period en route to a 34-save performance and his third consecutive victory.

The hand-eye was out in this game, as the Canucks extended their lead in the second period with another deflected goal. This time, Nate Smith got a piece of a Tristen Nielsen shot, extending his personal point streak to four games and his goal streak to three.

Just moments later, however, the Barracuda solved Tolopilo thanks to an undisciplined and rather juicy rebound. Anthony Vincent made no mistake, pouncing on the puck to cut the lead to one.

Midway through the third period, San Jose found the equalizer just 12 seconds into a power play. Rookie defenceman Luca Cagnoni took a pass in the high slot and ripped a shot low blocker-side, evening the score with plenty of time remaining.

Enter Nils Åman, who has recently been torching the American League. Thanks to his relentless forechecking, he forced a turnover, leading to a Sammy Blais shot and a rebound that Åman buried for his fifth goal of the season and third point of the game.

With points on all three Canucks goals, Åman took over the outright lead for team points, overtaking Ty Mueller. His heroics proved to be the difference, as the Canucks held on for a 3-2 victory. His three-point performance, capped by the game-winning goal, earned him the first star of the game.

But Åman wasn’t done there. He would come up big again in game two.

The Canucks received a significant boost for game two with the return of Jonathan Lekkerimäki (reassigned from Vancouver earlier in the day). However, they were without the services of Erik Brännström, who had played the second half of Saturday’s match with a full face shield. With a potential injury, he took the night off for game two of the weekend doubleheader.

Between the pipes, Arturs Silovs looked to follow in Tolopilo’s footsteps and extend his win streak to three games.

However, things did not start well for that reality.

On a first period power play, former Canuck Justin Bailey opened the scoring for San Jose. Despite taking a cross-check from Elias Pettersson, Bailey bounced back to his feet just in time to redirect an Andrew Poturalski feed past Silovs.

Believe it or not, this was just the second time the Canucks had trailed during their entire home stand (six games). And the Cuda’ weren’t done there.

Less than two minutes later, Poturalski collected a Luca Cagnoni outlet pass and beat Silovs cleanly off the rush with a perfect shot to the far side.

Just like that, it was 2-0 San Jose on just three shots.

But as mentioned earlier, Nils Åman has been en fuego, and he got right back to work to get the Canucks on the board with a quick shot from the slot. Thanks to a nice feed from his fellow countryman Linus Karlsson, who had received the puck from Jonathan Lekkerimäki, he handcuffed the netminder for his sixth goal.

Åman and Karlsson extended their point streaks to six games with those points.

Three minutes later, Lekkerimäki collected his second assist of the period. After a clean face-off win by Chase Wouters, Lekkerimäki found a trailing Cole McWard.

The sophomore defender fired a heavy shot that took a wild bounce up high and trickled past the Barracuda goaltender for his third goal of the season.

The Canucks weren’t done yet.

Less than two minutes into the middle frame, Aatu Räty buried a rebound for his seventh goal of the season, giving Abbotsford their first lead of the game.

Unfortunately, the Canucks found themselves in penalty trouble later in the period, and on a 5-on-3 power play, Luca Cagnoni struck again. This time, he picked up his fourth point of the weekend with a seeing-eye wrist shot through traffic.

Just seven seconds into the third period, the Canucks were dealt a dose of bad luck.

Off the opening faceoff, Jimmy Schuldt fired the puck into the Canucks’ zone for a routine dump-in. The puck took a wild bounce off the boards and landed right on the stick of Ethan Cardwell, who had an easy tap-in to give the Barracuda the lead once again.

They don’t get much easier than that, folks.

But the resilient Canucks responded just over a minute later. Linus Karlsson redirected a perfect feed from Ty Mueller to tie the game for his *check’s notes* ninth point in his last six games.

With the game hanging in the balance, the Canucks found the game-winner with just 38 seconds remaining.

Arshdeep Bains’ forechecking pressure forced a turnover, and Aatu Räty quickly spun and fired a perfect pass to Jonathan Lekkerimäki.

From there, Lekkerimäki made no mistake, redirecting the puck past the Barracuda netminder for the game-winning goal.

It was a fitting end to a thrilling game and a perfect homestand for the Canucks, as they followed up their franchise-worst six-game losing streak with an impressive six-game winning streak and now sit just one point out of fourth spot in the Pacific Division.

Notable Numbers from the last six games:

The Canucks now embark on a three-game road trip, beginning in Tucson, where they will face the Roadrunners on Friday, January 24th (6:00 pm PT).