There\u2019s something about Art\u016brs \u0160ilovs and the playoffs it seems.<\/p>\n
\u0160ilovs was superb pinch hitting in the Vancouver Canucks<\/a>\u2019 net in last year\u2019s NHL post-season, and he\u2019s shining once again this time around in the AHL playoffs for the Abbotsford Canucks<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n The 24-year-old Latvian made 22 saves in a 2-0 win over the Colorado Eagles before an announced crowd of 6,158 at the Abbotsford Centre Friday night to open the best-of-five AHL Pacific Division final. Game 2 is Sunday (6 p.m.) in Abbotsford<\/a>, and the series shifts to Colorado after that, starting with Game 3 Wednesday.<\/p>\n Abbotsford and Colorado are among the eight teams still standing in the AHL playoffs.<\/p>\n \u0160ilovs has stopped 76-of-77 (. 987 save percentage) in Abbotsford\u2019s last three games. Abbotsford ended off the last round with wins of 3-1 and then 2-0 over the Coachella Valley Firebirds. He was named the game\u2019s first star in all three of those outings.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s been a rock back there,\u201d Abbotsford captain Chase Wouters told the media afterwards. \u201cHe\u2019s doing it for us out there right now and that\u2019s what it takes this time of year.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Abbotsford got a second-period marker from centre Ty Mueller to open the scoring and then an empty-net goal in the waning seconds from defenceman Victor Mancini on Friday.<\/p>\n Former Vancouver Giants goalie Trent Miner made 22 saves for the Eagles, who are the farm club of the Colorado Avalanche.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Eagles were the top-scoring team in the AHL during the regular season, averaging 3.47 goals per game. Colorado (43-21-5-3) finished first in the Pacific Division, two points ahead of runner-up Abbotsford (44-24-2-2). The Canucks did go 6-2-0-0 against the Eagles in their regular season series.<\/p>\n \u0160ilovs was thrust into playoff duty last year with Vancouver after injuries sidelined both Thatcher Demko<\/a> and Casey DeSmith<\/a>, and he wound up with a 2.91 goals against average and a .898 save percentage in 10 appearances.<\/p>\n With Demko injured and DeSmith departing as a free agent, \u0160ilovs had a chance for an extended run in the Vancouver cage off the top of this season. But he gave up 15 goals in his first three starts, free agent addition Kevin Lankinen flourished and \u0160ilovs was sent to the minors when Demko was healthy.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u0160ilovs was 2-6-1, with a 3.65 goals against average and an .861 save percentage with Vancouver this season.<\/p>\n \u0160ilovs and Nikita Tolopilo split duties with Abbotsford in the regular season. \u0160ilovs was 14-5-1, with a 2.41 goals against average and a .908 save percentage.<\/p>\n In these AHL playoffs, \u0160ilovs is 6-1, with a 1.50 goals against average and a .942 save percentage. Tolopilo has one relief appearance in the post-season so far, coming on to start the second period in what wound up being a 5-4 overtime loss to Coachella Valley in Game 2 of the last round.<\/p>\n SEwen@postmedia.com<\/p>\n @SteveEwen<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There\u2019s something about Art\u016brs \u0160ilovs and the playoffs it seems. \u0160ilovs was superb pinch hitting in the Vancouver…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":36010,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5128],"tags":[8078,1865,496,8659,894,4808,192,144,3888,5862,5,1538,4,8662,6377,8660,3895,8661,893,27,1578,5313,1863],"class_list":{"0":"post-36009","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-vancouver-canucks","8":"tag-abbotsford","9":"tag-abbotsford-canucks","10":"tag-ahl-playoffs","11":"tag-arturs-silovs","12":"tag-canucks","13":"tag-casey-desmith","14":"tag-colorado","15":"tag-colorado-avalanche","16":"tag-colorado-eagles","17":"tag-david-bloom","18":"tag-hockey","19":"tag-kevin-lankinen","20":"tag-nhl","21":"tag-nikita-tolopilo","22":"tag-thatcher-demko","23":"tag-the-eagles","24":"tag-trent-miner","25":"tag-ty-mueller","26":"tag-vancouver","27":"tag-vancouver-canucks","28":"tag-vancouver-giants","29":"tag-vancouvercanucks","30":"tag-victor-mancini"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/114524372888714886","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36009","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36009"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36009\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36010"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}