It's time to go to Edmonton!
Like 23 other teams, the Vancouver Canucks are hopping on their charter to land in their hub city on Sunday.
As expected, "no dress code" means matching casual wear in Canucks-land. Makes the guys look even more like they're headed to sleepaway camp, doesn't it?
Starting Monday, the NHL will be taking over the scheduling and distribution of all Zoom calls, and exhibition games will kick off on Tuesday.
You can find the complete broadcast schedule
here. Looks like Tuesday's first game between Philly and Pittsburgh will only be available in Canada for subscribers to NHL Centre Ice / NHL Live, but that will be followed by two all-Canadian matchups on Sportsnet: Toronto/Montreal and the Battle of Alberta.
The Canucks' exhibition game will go Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. PT, also on Sportsnet, against the Winnipeg Jets.
Now that we've made it this far, it is cool to see six of seven Canadian teams in the mix right now. These matchups will carry some cachet for Sportsnet that should draw decent ratings, especially Edmonton vs. Calgary. And yes — Calgary is designated as the home team, so the Oilers will immediately have the experience of using the visitors' locker room and bench. They'll have home-ice advantage in their series against Chicago, but will also play as visitors for Game 3 and Game 4 (if necessary).
The NHL has said that it has plans to make each game look and feel unique, but not all of that is expected to be up to speed during the exhibition round.
The Canucks are also designated as the visitors in their game against the Jets — which means they're going to get up against a serious test on Wednesday night. Vancouver's record at Bell MTS Place is brutal. This year, for instance, they lost 4-1 in November and 4-0 in January. Those results are pretty typical, but a possible mitigating circumstance is that those games in Winnipeg often come at the end of long Eastern road trips.
This year, the November 8 loss was the second game of a back-to-back which saw the Canucks lose 5-2 in Chicago the night before. The January 14 shutout was the end of the five-gamer that saw Vancouver get hammered by the Lightning and Panthers in Florida, then rebound to beat Buffalo and Minnesota before facing the Jets.
The Canucks have had a good training camp, which has been dotted with far more positives than negatives.
The highlight has been a week of successful scrimmages by Micheal Ferland, who has looked good on the ice and is in a very positive frame of mind with the real games set to begin.
Official rosters were submitted to the league on Friday and are expected to be announced at some point on Sunday. Looks like these are the key details:
As well as Kole Lind played at Wednesday's scrimmage, I'm not surprised to see him miss the cut. For him, the win was having the opportunity to participate in this long training camp and get lots of facetime with the coaching staff. Confidence seems to be such an important part of his game. He should be able to build off what he showed he could do as he heads into next season.
Beyond the main forward group, Tyler Graovac and Justin Bailey both have big bodies and NHL experience. They'll be able to jump in if injuries really pile up — and also probably have the tools to understand what it means to stay ready as a Black Ace.
The defense decisions, I'm mildly surprised about. I did think Olli Juolevi would make the cut after such a strong showing at camp, and Jalen Chatfield certainly seemed to have momentum on his side. There were some moments in the scrimmages where I thought Ashton Sautner looked a bit overmatched, but I thought Guillaume Brisebois was fine, and he has been on the Canucks' recall list in the past. I didn't see anything special from Brogan Rafferty in my viewings, but he's in — essentially over Sautner, who also plays the right side.
So the defensemen going to Edmonton are:
Hughes - Tanev
Edler - Myers
Juolevi - Stecher (as deployed in final scrimmage on Friday)
plus:
Fantenberg - Chatfield
Benn - Rafferty
Jordie Benn, of course, is still absent. Still no sign of baby as of Sunday, per Instagram stories, but Sunday also happens to be Benn's 33rd birthday. Will the stars align?
Word came out on Friday that the team has chosen to take just three goaltenders, but Michael DiPietro would be 'on call' if needed.
A couple of personnel notes from Saturday's final practice:
• Zack MacEwen was 'unfit to practice' but is expected to be ready to go next week.
• Alex Edler was cut on this play, by the stick of Tyler Myers. Hopefully that's the extent of the damage!
To close today — one other Vancouver sports note. Against all odds the Whitecaps got through to the Round of 16 in the 'MLS is Back' tournament thanks to a 2-0 win over the Chicago Fire in front of third-string goaltender Thomas Hasal guarding the net. After blowing a three-goal lead to lose 4-3 to San Jose in their opening game, then dropping a 3-0 decision to Seattle in the first two games of their tournament — and losing starting goalkeeper Maxime Crepeau to a broken thumb — the 'Caps needed that two-goal margin of victory to advance. Chicago had opened its tournament with a 2-1 win over Seattle before losing 2-0 to San Jose. Even a one-goal loss would have been enough for the Fire to advance.
The Whitecaps' Round of 16 game is against Sporting Kansas City, who currently sit atop the 2020 MLS Western Conference Standings. Can they keep the magic alive? Tune in at 8 p.m. Sunday, on TSN.
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