Abbotsford Canucks Advance To Round 2 Of The 2025 Calder Cup Playoffs Over Tucson: One Year Ago Today

Welcome to the 2025 Calder Cup Throwback Series. Throughout the course of April, May, and June, we’ll be looking back at some of the biggest moments in the Abbotsford Canucks’ Calder Cup championship run from 2025. One year ago today, the AHL Canucks concluded their first-round series against the Tucson Roadrunners with a commanding 5–0 win in Game 3, clinching a second-round playoff berth for the second time in franchise history.

Prior to this, Abbotsford had only made an appearance in the second round once, during the 2022–23 season. The last time the AHL Canucks made the post-season in 2024, they’d been eliminated by the Colorado Eagles during their first-round series. On April 26, 2025, they made sure that wouldn’t be the case two seasons in a row.

In an electric Game 3 played in Abbotsford, the AHL Canucks put four goals past Roadrunners goaltender Jaxson Stauber plus an empty-net tally credited to Phil Di Giuseppe. This particular game was big for this team for many reasons — one, of course, being the fact that it set them up for a second-round matchup against the Coachella Valley Firebirds. Having said that, Abbotsford’s 5–0 Game 3 win also gave former Canucks goaltender Artūrs Šilovs his first AHL playoff shutout.

This was only the first of five shutouts that he would finish the 2025 post-season with. Offensive contributions came from all throughout the lineup as well during this game, as Di Giuseppe, Max Sasson, and Chase Wouters all tallied their first goals of the post-season, while Tristen Nielsen and Sammy Blais added their second and third respectively. Four different members of the AHL Canucks recorded four shots on net in this game, with those being Di Giuseppe, Sasson, Nielsen, and Linus Karlsson.