The Colorado Eagles visited Abbotsford, playing the Canucks (VAN) twice, on Friday and Saturday. Coming into this series, the Eagles stood in second place in the Pacific Division, two points behind the first-place Ontario Reign (LAK) and four points ahead of the third-place San Jose Barracuda (SJS). Possessing a 20–29–3–3 record, the Canucks occupied the division’s last position entering the series. But the Eagles would show fans two sides of the coin before they headed back south to California.

The day before the game, the Canucks invited former teammate Tristen Nielsen to their locker room, where he received his Calder Cup Championship ring. Nielsen scored five goals and four assists for Abbotsford in last year’s playoffs.

 

During the game, Abbotsford welcomed Nielsen back with a tribute video honoring the four seasons he spent with the team. Before the start of the 2025–26 season, Nielsen explained his decision to come to Colorado to Hockey Mountain High. He enjoyed his time with Abbotsford, but felt his skills could serve him better in Colorado’s fast-paced system. It’s proven to be true as he’s already scored a career-high twenty goals for the Eagles.

Friday: 5–2 victory

Written by Marie Sexton

The Eagles needed to win this game — not so much because they need every point possible in the standings (although that’s also true), but because the Canucks were a seriously depleted team. They started the game with only ten forwards, and one of them was actually a defenseman. Their penalty kill was also ranked thirty-first in the league. On paper, the Eagles had every right to expect an easy victory. Of course every knows those “easy” games can sometimes backfire. Luckily, that wasn’t the case this time around.

The Eagles started the scoring with a beautiful goal by Jason Polin at 9:24 of the first period. Danil Gushchin assisted on the goal.

The Eagles carried that 1–0 lead into the first intermission. Abbotsford’s Jack Thompson scored to tie the game at 8:59 of the second period. That tie lasted exactly twenty-one seconds before Chase Bradley scored his seventh goal of the season through a mess of bodies. Even after watching this in slow motion, I couldn’t quite say how it went in, but it did.

Four minutes later, Danila Klimovich went to the box for tripping.Luke Toporowski scored on the ensuing power play, assisted by Bryan Yoon and Valtteri Puustinen. The Eagles went to the second intermission with a 3–1 lead.

Only fifty-seven seconds into the third period, Jack Ahcan and Ivan Ivan connected on a cross-ice pass. Ahcan’s faked shot drew goaltender Jiří Patera out of his crease to the right, leaving the net wide open for Ivan, who scored his sixth goal of the season.

Abbotsford scored one more goal at 14:44 of the third period, but couldn’t rally more than that. With 1:12 left in the game, Bradley scored on an empty net — his second goal of the night — to seal the victory.

Saturday: 4-0 loss

Written by Brennan Vogt

Once again, the Canucks were playing with a short bench, dressing only 11 forwards. After Friday night’s game, Abbotsford had to play Ty Young in net. He only held a 1–8 record before Saturday night. Jacob MacDonald would roll back into the lineup for the Eagles and take Sean Behrens’ place on the blue line. And in net for the Eagles would be Isak Posch as they stay with the rotation of every other game.

Abbotsford headed to the box for a trip, but just a minute and a half later Ahcan was called for a questionable trip. This put both sides at four skaters each. It took only 10 seconds for the Canucks to do anything about the situation. It would take nearly five minutes for either side to get a shot on net, and then Abbotsford got aggressive. After a face-off in the Colorado zone, Ty Mueller  bounced the puck off the wall and spun. He lost Ivan Ivan on his way down the slot and threw a weak shot past Posch for the opening goal.

With the ensuing power play, Abbotsford scored once more with a shot that made its way past Keaton Middleton as he tried to catch it.

The second was a frustrating period for the Eagles. There were no penalties called in the middle frame, but they were outshot 8-7 and outplayed. Abbotsford played a better defensive game and forced Colorado to the perimeter the entire period. With less than two minutes left in the period, Klimovich hits Ahcan along the boards in the Canuck zone and steals the puck. Ben Berard hit the post and Klimovich knock the puck out of the air for the 3-0 lead.

The final frame started out just as bad as the second ended. Ivan headed to the box for a double-minor after a high-stick. Thirty-two seconds later, Mark Senden got called for a trip, sending the Eagles to a 5-on-3 for a full two minutes. It took only 20 seconds for Mueller to redirect a shot off his skate. Officials reviewed the goal, and they upheld it.

The Eagles struggled to get any real momentum for the rest of the period and would drop the match 4-0.

Takeaways

In the first game of the series, Colorado came out with a tone of energy and even converted on the power play. The Eagles threw 38 shots on net in the game on Friday, and they wore out the starting goaltender. Saturday was quite the opposite, getting 23 shots on net. What hurt the Eagles was that they had to kill seven power plays in the game. Ivan Ivan has been consistently incurring penalties during key moments of games. Besides this, Colorado was very loose with the puck. Puck management has been a problem for the Eagles, and it showed on Saturday night with a ton of turnovers.

Up Next

The Eagles continue their road trip as they head for a one-game stop to play the Ontario Reign (LAK) on Wednesday at 8. p.m. MT. AHLTV on FloHockey.com will stream the game.