Rush Loan Birnie to Abbotsford Canucks After Six-Point Pro Debut

Six points in nine professional games was enough for the Abbotsford Canucks to come calling. The AHL club announced April 1 that it had signed Rapid City Rush winger Braden Birnie to a professional tryout agreement, promoting the 24-year-old from the ECHL just three weeks into his pro career.

Birnie, listed at 6-foot-2 and 192 pounds by Abbotsford GM Ryan Johnson's official release, had signed with the Rush on March 9 and made his pro debut three days later on March 12. He finished that nine-game ECHL stint with two goals and four assists, including multiple multi-point outings, before earning the call to the AHL level.

The quick turnaround caps a remarkable stretch for the Weyburn, Saskatchewan product. Less than a month before signing in Rapid City, Birnie was delivering one of the more dramatic moments of his college career at the University of Alaska-Fairbanks. With 1.1 seconds left in a United Collegiate Hockey Cup semifinal, he scored a tying goal to keep the Nanooks alive. "That one was just so crazy," Birnie told The SportsCage after signing with the Rush. "You're thinking, this might be it, and then the puck's sitting there." The following night, he added an assist on the championship-clinching overtime goal to give Alaska-Fairbanks the title.

That clutch performance capped a four-year NCAA career in which Birnie totaled 47 points, 16 goals, 31 assists, and 74 penalty minutes across 114 games, all as an NCAA-Independent. His senior season was his best, with career highs in goals (7), points (18), and penalty minutes (22) in 33 games. He wore the captain's C at UAF, a distinction that followed him through junior hockey as well. He captained the Weyburn Red Wings of the SJHL before a trade sent him to the Steinbach Pistons of the MJHL. Pistons head coach Paul Dyck was direct about what the acquisition meant: "He is a high character individual who was wearing the C in Weyburn, so he adds leadership as well."

For Abbotsford, the addition of Birnie addresses a forward depth need in the final stretch of a difficult season. The defending Calder Cup champions, who defeated the Charlotte Checkers in six games last spring for the franchise's first-ever title, sit last in the overall AHL standings in 2025-26. With only six games remaining before the regular season closes on April 19, the PTO gives Johnson a low-cost option to evaluate Birnie at the AHL level while adding a player already generating offense at the pro level below.

The cross-organizational nature of the move is standard AHL practice. The Rush are the ECHL affiliate of the NHL's Calgary Flames, while Abbotsford feeds the Vancouver Canucks. PTOs are offered independently of parent-club affiliations, and Rapid City retains Birnie's ECHL rights should he return. Under AHL rules, a PTO is capped at 25 games, with the team able to release the player at any point. At the agreement's conclusion, Birnie would have the right to negotiate a standard AHL contract or another PTO, making the window both a ceiling and a potential career inflection point.

For a player who scored a championship-saving goal with a second on the clock and then turned a 23-day ECHL stint into an AHL opportunity, the ceiling question may be the more relevant one.