Patrick Williams, TheAHL.com Features Writer
Let’s get the bad out of the way first.
One night after shutting out Tucson, the Henderson Silver Knights came under a five-goal barrage from the Roadrunners in the first period of Wednesday’s rematch.
Raphael Lavoie had given Henderson an early 1-0 lead, but Tucson answered with a barrage of four goals in a span of 1:51, sending Silver Knights goaltender Carl Lindbom to the bench just 6:21 into the game after facing only seven shots – most of them prime scoring chances.
Head coach Ryan Craig did not see Lindbom as the problem.
“Carl’s carried us with every start,” he said. “He’s done a great job for us… We didn’t do a good enough job, nearly good enough in those two minutes in front of Carl.”
For Lindbom, the 22-year-old seventh-round draft pick who has been dominant for much of his two seasons with the Silver Knights, it was a rare off-night. An AHL All-Star selection this season before an injury forced him to miss the event, Lindbom is 7-0-1 since returning to the crease – including Tuesday’s 30-save shutout of Tucson.
And Henderson also picked up their goaltender on Wednesday, rallying for a 7-6 overtime victory behind Lavoie’s hat trick and 26 saves from Cameron Whitehead in relief.
“We definitely believed,” Lavoie said of his team, which continues a six-game road stretch in Abbotsford on Saturday and Sunday. “Obviously it’s hard. We [were] in a tough spot, but we clawed our way back in.”
It was an up-and-down night for a team that has had a season defined by those swings. Henderson won seven in a row from Oct. 17 to Nov. 2, then lost nine of 13. They entered the All-Star break on a 2-6-3-1 slide, but they’re 8-2-0-2 since. They are showing that they could be a playoff team again, especially with Lindbom healthy. And the organization – and Silver Knights fans – could use some postseason hockey, something they haven’t had in Henderson since a first-round exit in 2022.
This season feels different, though. There is Lindbom, of course. Lavoie is a proven scorer and has delivered 16 goals in only 28 games. They have a dynamic back end featuring puck-moving options like Dylan Coghlan, Lukas Cormier and Jeremy Davies. The power play is tied for third in AHL at 23.9 percent. And they can win a 1-0 game as they did Tuesday night, or a run-and-gun 7-6 game like Wednesday’s.
And now there is newly added forward Alexander Holtz, who joined the team on loan from the Golden Knights last weekend and delivered three assists in Wednesday’s victory. Holtz, 24, has 39 goals in his last 85 AHL regular-season games. This bunch already could score – Henderson ranks fourth in the AHL at 3.38 goals per game and has nine players in double-digit goals on its active roster, and Holtz adds another weapon to Craig’s lineup.
The sweep of Tucson also provided a proverbial standings swing as well. Henderson now holds sixth place in the Pacific Division at 62 points, three points clear of the eighth-place Roadrunners with two games in hand. And the Silver Knights also have the easiest remaining schedule among the 10 teams in the Pacific, including four more meetings with Tucson in addition to their upcoming visits to Calgary and Abbotsford.
It’s only going to get more intense, but the Silver Knights showed again to the AHL – and reinforced to themselves – that they can handle this stretch-drive pressure.
“I think they feel good about their response,” Craig continued in his post-game comments Wednesday. “I think they feel good about how they came together, how they stuck together, how they found a way to dig in and win a big hockey game.”