Vancouver Canucks president Jim Rutherford made his goals for the Abbotsford Canucks crystal clear during his 2022 year-end media availability.
Vancouver missed the playoffs that season, Travis Green was fired as head coach and Bruce Boudreau carried the team to a strong second half, but Rutherford's eyes remained on Abbotsford for the future.
"This could be the best franchise in the American Hockey League over time," he stated on May 3, 2022. "When Franceso [Aqulini] first came to talk to me that was a priority of a number of things we talked about the importance of having that franchise here in British Columbia. Make sure it's as good, but make it better and make better and make sure we have good players there so we have a good team every year."
It may have been just talk in 2022, but three years later the Abbotsford Canucks are Calder Cup champions. Abbotsford has never missed the playoffs and the Canucks organization has turned its AHL franchise from an afterthought into a critical part of the NHL team's development and success.
This past season saw Vancouver have 15 players suit up in both the NHL and AHL, which tied for second in the Pacific Division behind the Colorado Eagles (15) and the San Jose Barracuda (16).
Canucks players who played in both Abbotsford and Vancouver consisted of: Aatu Raty, Victor Mancini, Max Sasson, Linus Karlsson, Jonathan Lekkerimaki, Nils Aman, Phil Di Giuseppe, Elias Pettersson (defenceman), Erik Brannstrom, Arshdeep Bains, Kirill Kudryavtsev, Ty Muller, Guillaume Brisebois, Arturs Silovs (goalie) and Nikita Tolopilo (G).
The San Diego Gulls, the affiliate of the Anaheim Ducks, had the fewest number of players who competed at both levels at five.
Making the Abbotsford numbers even more impressive is that they led the Pacific Division in total numbers of games played by players who played at both the AHL and the NHL. The Canucks had 252 games played from players who also spent at least one game in the AHL. Top individual totals were: Raty 鈥� 33, Sasson 鈥� 29 and Pettersson 鈥� 28.
The San Jose Barracuda ranked second with 184 games played, while Colorado was third at 176. The Henderson Silver Knights had the fewest number of games played by two-way players at 45 in 2024-25.
Canucks players also managed to contribute when making the call from Abbotsford to Vancouver. Two-way players collected a total of 57 points, which ranked second behind only the Calgary Wranglers (69) in the Pacific Division. However, the Calgary number is a bit skewed because forward Matt Coronato accounts for 47 of those 69 points. Coronato ended up playing just two games for the Wranglers in 2024-25 and 77 for the Flames. Take away his totals and Abbotsford would rank first.
Raty was the most productive two-way player with 11 points, with Brannstrom adding eight and Sasson recording seven.
The Barracuda had 38 points from two-way players to rank third in the division. Henderson had just two points from players who played at both levels in 2024-25, while the Bakersfield Condors had 13 points.
Abbotsford's success was also proven in the evidence that Raty and Sasson were recently given one-way contracts by Vancouver, meaning that their success in the AHL impressed those in the NHL.
The Calder Cup win was the culmination of several years of development and building by Abbotsford at the AHL level. The team had only ever advanced to the Pacific Division semifinal round prior to 2025.
Two-way players used in these totals consisted of:
Bakersfield 鈥� Travis Dermott, Cam Dineen, Josh Brown, Drake Caggiula, Matthew Savoie, Noah Philp, Max Jones, Derek Ryan and Olivier Rodrigue (G).
Calgary 鈥� Matt Coronato, Samuel Honzek, Hunter Brzustewicz, Ilya Solovyov, Clark Bishop, Dryden Hunt, Tyson Barrie, Rory Kerins and Adam Klapka.
Coachella Valley 鈥� Ben Meyers, Jacob Melanson, Cale Fleury, Ryan Winterton, Ville Ottavainen, John Hayden, Mitchell Stephens, Jani Nyman, Niklas Kokko (G) and Ales Stezka (G).
Colorado 鈥� Jere Innala, Nikita Prischepov, Matthew Stienburg, Tye Felhaber, Jason Polin, Oskar Olausson, Chase Bradley, Jack Ahcan, T.J. Tynan, Chris Wagner, Wyatt Aamodt, Keaton Middleton, John Ludvig and Ivan Ivan.
Henderson 鈥� Jonas Rondbjerg, Raphael Lavoie, Robert Hagg, Mason Morelli, Tanner Laczynski, Cal Burke and Akira Schmid (G).
Ontario: Pheonix Copley (G), Erik Portillo (G), Jeff Malott, Taylor Ward, Andre Lee, Samuel Helenius and Jacob Moverave.
San Diego: Drew Helleson, Tristan Luneau, Ian Moore, Nikita Nesterneko and Sam Colangelo.
San Jose: Thomas Bordeleau, Scott Sabourin, Andrew Poturalski, Colin White, Luca Cagnoni, Ethan Cardwell, Walker Duehr, Patrick Giles, Jimmy Schuldt, Georgy Romanov (G), Danil Gushcun, Yaroslav Askarov (G), Zack Ostapchuk, Shakir Mukhamadullin, Jack Thompson and Collin Graf.
Tucson: Jaxson Stauber (G), Matthew Villalta (G), Kailer Yamamoto, Maveric Lamoureux, Juuso Valimaki and Josh Doan.
