Abbotsford’s Calder Cup championship a victory for entire Canucks organization

VANCOUVER — So, this is what a championship looks like.

The Abbotsford Canucks were not expected two months ago to win the American Hockey League’s Calder Cup, but on Monday delivered their parent organization its first minor-league title — and the franchise’s first championship of any kind — since the Vancouver Canucks entered the National Hockey League in 1970.

The incredible five-round playoff run that ended with a 3-2 Game 6 win in Charlotte, N.C., was built around resilience and lineup depth, leadership and a seemingly perfect blend of professional hockey veterans and driven prospects, Manny Malhotra’s coaching and Arturs Silovs’ goaltending.

A handful of these Calder Cup-winning players have legitimate chances to win NHL spots with the Canucks next fall. It is impossible, however, to say how many will graduate to the best league in the world.

But vitally, what will course through the organization, moving west through the Fraser Valley from Abbotsford to Vancouver, is some of the culture and understanding that now imbue the best prospects from the minor-league team.

“It's building something,” Ryan Johnson, the Canucks’ assistant general manager who doubles as the minor-league team’s GM, told Sportsnet before the long flight home on Tuesday. “At the end of the day, we're trying to develop players to win a Stanley Cup. But you have to win at a certain level first for those guys to develop the way you want. 

“The players — we were going through it last night — and how it impacts their life and their careers, whether it was a first-year guy or a 10-year guy. We're developing everybody; it's all ages, all contracts, all situations. You develop to win, but you've got to win to develop.”

Whether any or all of the top line of Arshdeep Bains, Max Sasson or Linus Karlsson, who led the AHL playoffs with 14 goals and 26 points and scored the Calder Cup-winner in Monday’s 3-2 triumph over the Charlotte Checkers, make Vancouver’s roster next season, they now understand and embrace the sacrifice and singular focus required to win.

So does second-line centre Ty Mueller and 2022 first-rounder Jonathan Lekkerimaki. So do defence prospects Victor Mancini and Kirill Kudryavtsev and, of course, Silovs. 

All of these players logged NHL games for the Canucks this season and will be better prepared, and probably even more driven, the next time they are offered.

Key veterans like Phillip DiGiuseppe, Sammy Blais, Guillaume Brisebois and Christian Wolanin have helped their chances of getting another NHL opportunity, whether with the Canucks or someone else.

“We never focused necessarily on just the record or winning games,” Johnson explained. “I think we focused on two things, which is professionalism — how you practise as much as how you play — and then the second part of that is the quality of the teammate we could be. That doesn’t mean buying lunch or beers after practice; that's how hard you push each and the decisions you make every day. . . that allows you to have success and win something. That's what I want every single one of these guys and staff to take with them.

“This is incredibly important, from the top down. First off, our fan base has been unbelievable from the Fraser Valley to Vancouver. You know, we wish we could have shared (the championship) with them Saturday night (on home ice in Game 5), but it almost felt like it's the path of this group just to have to go on the road and do it in a tough environment. That's kind of how it has worked for these guys. But ownership, our management group, our pro or amateur or development (staffs). . . it's something you just share as an organization. You're proud and how these guys had to kind of go through the gauntlet. We've been going through (playoffs) since the middle of April, and nobody ever wavered. I give these players a huge amount of credit because they taught me something about winning. 

“They decided they wanted to do this a while back, and they never let up on it. It has been amazing to watch.”

This isn’t the championship most Canuck fans desperately crave, but it is a victory for the organization and a step towards building a Stanley Cup contender.

Besides the players and AHL staff, it’s a huge win for the Canucks’ scouting department and development staff.

Sasson and Bains were undrafted free agents signed out of college and junior hockey. Mueller was a fourth-round draft pick just two years ago, Kudryatsev a seventh-rounder in 2022. Silovs was selected in the sixth round of the 2019 draft.

And there were scouting contributions in the early-career trades of Karlsson and Mancini to the Canucks.

“Anytime you've got guys that are having success, it makes our group feel good,” Canucks amateur scouting director Todd Harvey said. “I mean, Kirill was a seventh-round draft pick and first-year pro, and he played phenomenal hockey. Our guys are real thrilled that guys like him and Sass and Lekky, all the guys that are there, you know, it's a little feather in their cap. It was a great run for Abbotsford, but real exciting for our organization.”

As a player, Johnson was part of the early-Sedins era when the NHL Canucks struggled to break through the second-round playoff ceiling.

A second-round pick of the Florida Panthers, the 49-year-old actually began his career with their farm team in Carolina. Eventually, Johnson played 701 NHL games for five teams over 14 seasons, but never got the chance to play for a Stanley Cup.

“I stepped back and watched these guys hand the trophy to each other,” Johnson said after a joyously sleepless night. “The staff, the smiles, the hugs, the tears, just watching everybody be able to enjoy the work that they've put in, it's still hard for me to really digest. But watching people go through this. . . I'll take with me forever. It's something I'll never forget.”

Nobody who was involved will forget it.