Patrick WilliamsTheAHL.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 deficit to the Roadrunners in the first half of Wednesday’s rematch.
Raphael Lavoie He gave Henderson a 1-0 lead, but Tucson responded with a four-goal run in a 1:51 span, sending Silver Knights goaltender Carl Lindbom to the bench just 6:21 into the game after facing just seven shots — most of them good scoring chances.
The head coach Ryan Craig he did not see Lindbom as a problem.
“Carl carries us all the time,” he said. “He did a great job for us… We didn’t do a good enough job, almost enough in those two minutes in front of Carl.”
For Lindbom, a 22-year-old seventh-round draft pick who dominated most of his two seasons with the Silver Knights, it was a rare 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 lineup — including a 30-minute shutout in Tucson on Tuesday.
And Henderson picked up their lead again on Wednesday, rallying for a 7-6 overtime victory behind Lavoie’s hat trick and 26 saves. Cameron Whitehead in freedom.
“We really believed,” Lavoie said of his team, which continues a six-game road trip at Abbotsford on Saturday and Sunday. “Obviously it’s difficult for us [were] in a difficult place, but we bounced back.”
It was an up-and-down night for a team that had a season defined by those swings. Henderson won seven in a row from October 17 to November 2, then lost nine of 13. They entered the All-Star break with a 2-6-3-1 slide, but are 8-2-0-2 since then. They are showing they can 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 their first-round exit in 2022.
This season feels different, though. There’s Lindbom, of course. Lavoie is a proven goalscorer and has scored 16 goals in just 28 games. They have a dynamic backfield with options to move the puck like Dylan Coghlan, Lukas Cormier again Jeremy Davies. The power play is tied for third in the AHL at 23.9 percent. And they can win a 1-0 game like they did Tuesday night, or a run-and-gun 7-6 game like Wednesday.
And now something new has been added to the front Alexander Holtzwho joined the team on loan from the Golden Knights last weekend and provided three assists in Wednesday’s win. Holtz, 24, has 39 goals in his last 85 regular-season AHL games. This team has been able to score – Henderson ranks fourth in the AHL with 3.38 goals per game and has nine players in double-digit goals on their active roster, and Holtz adds another weapon to Craig’s roster.
The Tucson sweep also provided the proverbial swing. Henderson now holds sixth place in the Pacific Division with 62 points, three points behind the eighth-place Roadrunners with two games in hand. And the Silver Knights also have the easiest schedule remaining among the 10 teams in the Pacific, including four more meetings with Tucson in addition to their upcoming visits to Calgary and Abbotsford.
It will be very intense, but the Silver Knights once again showed the AHL – and were strengthened in it – that they can withstand this stretch-drive pressure.
“I think they feel good about their response,” continued Craig in his comments after the game on Wednesday. “I think they feel good about how they came together, how they stuck together, found a way to come in and win a big hockey game.”
In the American Hockey League for two decades, TheAHL.com features writer Patrick Williams and currently covers the league for NHL.com and FloSports and is a regular contributor to SiriusXM NHL Network Radio. He was the recipient of the AHL’s James H. Ellery Memorial Award for the league’s top scorer in 2016.
