A six-game losing streak has put the Abbotsford Canucks in a tough spot. Heading into Tuesday’s game, the Canucks were seventh in the Pacific Division, nine points behind the visiting Ontario Reign.

The good news? The Pacific Division is quite forgiving, and the team remained within the playoff picture, with the top seven teams securing a spot in the postseason.

The bad news? They faced a red-hot team boasting a 7-2-0-1 record over their last 10 games, sitting third in the division.

The Canucks were resilient, though. Coming in with a two-game winning streak of their own, they battled back from a rough start to deliver a strong effort on home ice.

Finding consistent offensive contributions from their top players has been a struggle lately. But tonight, they got exactly that, which propelled a dominant second-half performance en route to a 6-3 victory against a division rival.

Let’s take a closer look at how it all unfolded, shall we?

Blais – Stevens – Karlsson
Bains – Räty – Smith
Nielsen – Aman – Klimovich
Glover – Wouters – Kambeitz

Pettersson – Friedman
Brännström – Woo
Wolanin – Kudryavtsev

Tolopilo

The big addition to the lineup came on the backend, where Erik Brännström returned to the Abby lineup for the first time since October. He formed a second pair alongside Jett Woo.

Aside from that, the roster was identical to Saturday night.

The game started about as bad as it could have, with the Canucks pinned in their zone for most of the opening five minutes. That sustained pressure eventually led to the Reign scoring the game’s first goal off a tremendous baseball swing effort.

Off a play that may have been offside, former Canucks draftee Tyler Madden kept possession at the blueline before sending an aerial puck over a sliding Brännström that was batted out of midair perfectly by Jeff Malott.

As if the slow start wasn’t enough, history wasn’t exactly on their side. You see, the Ontario Reign came in sporting an unreal record when scoring the first goal. They had only lost one game all season when scoring first, and that one loss came in a shootout.

With that in mind, the Canucks had their work cut out for them out of the gate.

It took the home team over six minutes to find their first shot of the game, courtesy of Sammy Blais, who forced Pheonix Copley to make a strong blocker save.

Shot or not, the Canucks had little push in the first period. But Dino Kambeitz made his best attempt to produce a pick-me-up for his team, dropping the gloves with the goalscorer Jeff Malott to create a spark.

The Canucks continued to look bland and lacked any substance to start the game. Heck, they were even handed a powerplay opportunity midway through the period. Still, they could not muster anything special off that opportunity and failed to generate a single shot.

In fact, it wasn’t until the 17-minute mark of the period that they finally grabbed their third shot of the game. And they made that one count.

On a fortuitous break, the Swedish connection of Nils Åman, Erik Brännström, and Linus Karlsson linked up to even the score with a lucky one.

On a 4-on-4 battle, Brännström looked to give the puck back to Åman before it deflected off a defender’s stick right to Karlsson, who banged home his fifth point in three games.

Of course, Brännström picked up an assist in his first period back with the baby club, piggybacking off the three points in games he had to kick off the year in October.

Back in the Abbotsford end, Nikita Tolpilo was holding up his end of the bargain despite not being tested often through the period.

The period ended with Erik Brännström showing off his skills, which always flourish at the American League level.

The middle frame had the opposite effect, with the home team pressing hard out the gate – the second was all Canucks.

First, Jett Woo started the play quickly with a one-touch pass to send Linus Karlsson. The Swede acted promptly, sending Aatu Räty all alone for a tremendous chance to break the tie, but could not solve Phoenix Copley off two attempts.

Seconds later, Elias Pettersson had his point-blank shot blocked before the puck went skyward and fell behind the net. Bains found the puck and cut toward the front of the net, forcing Copley to make another quick save.

They were coming hot and heavy in the initial minutes, and eventually, it paid off.

With a strong cutback play from Bains, he found Elias Pettersson on the blueline, who wasted no time with it for the one-timer snapshot. Stapled at the netfront, Aatu Räty managed to get his stick on the shot to deflect his sixth goal of the season.

They weren’t done there, though.

Minutes later, Jett Woo turned a tremendous defensive effort into a top-notch primary assist.

After breaking up a defensive end pass, Woo turned up and quickly transitioned the puck with a seeing-eye stretch pass to send Dino Kambeitz all alone. He made no mistake for his sixth of the season and doubled their lead midway through the second period.

To their credit, the Reign would stop the bleeding later in the period.

Off the rush, Charles Hudon fired the initial shot, with the rebound falling right onto the stick of the AHL’s third-highest scorer, Glenn Gawdin, who potted his 13th of the season and 35th point of his season.

But the Canucks did not let that deter them from continuing their strong second-period push.

He won’t get the assist on the goal, but Jett Woo started the whole playoff by forcing the defensive zone turnover (again) with a big hit. The puck rounded to Räty, who sprung Arshdeep Bains onto the rush. Cutting to the outside, Bains found Nate Smith in the slot with a perfect feed to double their lead once again.

After a slow start to the game, it was all Canucks from here on out.

The Reign were doing all they could to bounce back from a horrid and forgettable second frame.

They went as far as attempting a Michigan goal but couldn’t get it to go.

Just moments later, Nikita Tolopilo made the save of the game off a rebound attempt from a deflected shot. Jeff Malott deflected the initial shot and, with the puck loose in the slot, made an attempt to cash in from in tight.

Sprawling out, however, was Tolopilo, who closed the glove on the puck to deny the game’s opening goalscorer the opportunity.

It was so nice, let’s see it twice!

That missed opportunity would prove costly for the Reign.

Shortly after, they sent Abby on another powerplay, where the Canucks worked things around nicely.

First, Tristen Nielsen received the puck off a nice bumper play, but Copley flashed the leather like a young Patrick Roy.

But off that ensuing face-off, the Canucks made no mistake.

Off the Nate Smith one-timer, Sammy Blais won the puck battle in front, spun and scored to triple the team’s lead for the fourth goal of his season.

Ontario wasn’t going out without a fight, though.

Off a frantic giveaway by Mark Friedman, Glenn Gawdin sent a tremendous stretch pass to a breaking Charles Hudon, who made a nice pump fake to backhand move to beat Tolpilo clean.

Later, after the Canucks failed to capitalize on two consecutive powerplays, Hudon looked to cut the deficit to one goal, hitting the post off the rush shot.

That would be as close as they come.

Down by a pair, the Reigns elected to pull their goalie early with over four minutes remaining. Aatu Räty won the draw cleanly in his own end, where Friedman rounded the puck to send captain Chase Wouters for the empty net tuck.

With the secondary assist, Raty capped off a four-point night. Thanks to him and six different goalscorers, the Canucks capped the night off with a dominant 6-3 victory over their Pacific Division rivals.

But that wasn’t before AHL Erik Brännström flashed a little more magic with the puck.

Few are more entertaining to watch at the American League level than him. Now, for him to show this sort of poise at the NHL level.

These two teams will play game two of the mid-week doubleheader at the Abbotsford Centre. The Puck drops at 7:00 p.m. PT.