JACK STUDNICKA SCORES OVERTIME WINNER AS CANUCKS WIN 3-2 IN HENDERSON
The Abbotsford Canucks opened up their four game road trip with a visit to Henderson on Friday night, kicking off their back to back against the Silver Knights.
Vasily Podkolzin and Chase Wouters returned to the lineup from injury, as Podkolzin lined up with Sheldon Dries and Arshdeep Bains. Wouters centered a line with Jermaine Loewen and Marc Gatcomb, while Jeremy Colliton kept the Aatu Räty, Max Sasson and Linus Karlsson line together. Nils Åman and Danila Klimovich would round out the forward group with Jack Studnicka, who made his first Abbotsford appearance on the evening.
Alex Kannok Leipert and Quinn Schmiemann fill in with the defence core with Jett Woo, Cole McWard, Matt Irwin and Filip Johansson. Artūrs Šilovs would start his fourth consecutive game, while Jiri Patera would line up between the pipes for the Silver Knights.
Dries would get the scoring started in the opening minutes, as he would intercept a Henderson pass in his own zone. On the penalty kill, Dries drove the puck forward and was uncontested against Patera, as the Abbotsford forward would roof the puck into the top corner. The puck flew past Patera’s glove, giving Dries his seventh of the year, tying Åman for the team lead.
Four minutes later, Henderson would answer back. Brendan Brisson took a quick pass from a faceoff by Grigori Dennisenko and fired a shot from the left faceoff circle, beating Šilovs. Brisson’s sixth of the year would break Šilovs’ shutout streak, and levelled the scoring at 1-1.
That score is how the period would finish at, with Jake Bischoff and Sheldon Dries getting into a fight as the clock expired. Both teams were sent to the locker rooms knotted at 1.
Brisson would put the hosts in the lead after capitalizing on a 5-on-3 power play, coming right at the midway mark of the contest.
Henderson would hold that lead through the rest of the period and into the intermission, where they held a narrow lead in the shot count as well.
Åman would pull Abbotsford back even less than two minutes into the third, as he broke forward with Danila Klimovich. Åman took the puck out wide and fluttered a pass towards Klimovich at the back post. Klimovich and a Silver Knights defender both got a piece of it, as the puck was deflected past Patera and into the net to tie the game.
Šilovs would do his part to keep the score level just minutes later, as he denied Sheldon Rempal with a glove save on a breakaway.
The Silver Knights would kill a handful of penalties down the stretch, as this one would require overtime to find a winner. Abbotsford would rattle off 20 shots in the final frame, but Patera would answer the call and secure both sides at least a point.
Just over a minute into the extra frame, Filip Johansson sprang Studnicka on a breakaway down the right side. Studnicka, on his Abbotsford debut, would squeee the puck between the netminder’s shoulder and the cross bar, giving Abbotsford the 3-2 overtime victory.
Studnicka lead the game in shots with 7, as Patera would make 40 saves on Abbotsford’s 43 attempts on the night. Šilovs extended both his and the Canucks’ win streak to four games thanks to a 29 save performance from the Latvian netminder.
The two sides will square off again on Saturday afternoon at 3:00pm, before the Canucks fly home. They will practice for a few days in Abbotsford before heading over to face Calgary on November 25th and 26th. Abbotsford will then return home for two games against Laval on December 1st and 2nd (Teddy Bear Toss), and wrapping up with a pair of home games against Coachella Valley a week later.
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