Malhotra pleased with team’s Game 3 response | TheAHL.com

Patrick Williams, TheAHL.com Features Writer

Response. Counter-response. Point. Counterpoint. Back and forth the solution-seeking goes in a long playoff series.

The Abbotsford Canucks had come away with a split on the road in the first two games of the Calder Cup Finals against the Charlotte Checkers. Still, their 3-2 overtime loss in Game 2 this past Sunday had not sat well with head coach Manny Malhotra and his players. A sluggish start. Too many penalties. Too much letting the ultra-aggressive Checkers drive the play.

But maybe coming back home to Abbotsford could right the Canucks.

Malhotra got a response and then some from his players. After falling down a goal early, the Canucks responded. The Abbotsford power play continues to dominate against a Charlotte penalty kill that had stifled opponents in the previous three rounds of the Calder Cup Playoffs. Sammy Blais provided the second-period tying goal on the power play. After Linus Karlsson’s go-ahead goal opened the third period, another power-play strike, this one from Arshdeep Bains, sent the Canucks on their way to a third-period rout, a 6-1 victory, and a 2-1 series lead.

“I give them a lot of credit for responding the right way,” Malhotra said of his team following the win. “We weren’t overly happy with the performance last game. They obviously come at us with a ton of pressure, but we did a good job of executing when the opportunities were there.”

Game 4 is Thursday night at Abbotsford Centre, where the Canucks have gone 9-2 this postseason, with Game 5 to follow Saturday night. One way or another, Saturday will be the Canucks’ home finale, and they have positioned themselves to have a chance to win the Calder Cup on home ice.

Tuesday’s five-goal third period showed that the Canucks can dictate play rather than the Checkers, whose speed, tenacity, and all-out puck pursuit had frustrated and stymied opponents, the Canucks included, the entire postseason before Game 3. Charlotte had poured a combined 96 shots on Abbotsford in the opening two games of this series, a number that the Canucks had to cut down in order to pull back some of the control in this match-up.

A lot of that success came down to a “far better” effort, as Malhotra termed it. The Canucks won more puck battles, controlled both blue lines, won net-front battles, and therefore controlled the puck more often. They broke pucks out successfully, no small task against a forecheck like Charlotte’s. By the…