Wednesday April 6 - Vancouver Canucks 5, Vegas Golden Knights 1
Thursday April 7 - Vancouver Canucks at Arizona Coyotes, 7 p.m. PT
The Vancouver Canucks didn't do much to help their playoff chances, but they got their first-ever regulation win at T-Mobile Arena in fine style on Wednesday night.
Elias Pettersson put on a show like we haven't seen in awhile, breaking out with two goals and two assists and earning first-star honours as the Vancouver Canucks beat the Vegas Golden Knights 5-1.
Winnipeg lost its third straight game on Wednesday, dropping a 2-1 decision to Detroit on home ice. So the Canucks and Jets are now tied with 76 points in 71 games and identical records of 33-28-10. But Vancouver moves up to 10th place thanks to one more regulation win.
Seeing their five-game winning streak come to an end, Vegas remained stuck in ninth place in the Western Conference with 82 points — one behind Dallas and two back of Nashville, but both those teams have three fewer games played.
MoneyPuck shows Vegas's playoff odds at a rather grim 31.6% as of Thursday morning. That's still a lot better than Vancouver, sitting at 1.4%.
But the Golden Knights will have to watch as their rivals make up games over the next week. They only play Saturday, hosting Arizona, before coming up to start a three-game Western Canada road trip in Vancouver next Tuesday.
Nashville will use up two of its games-in-hand during that time. The Preds play in Ottawa on Thursday, then host Florida for a Saturday matinee before visiting Pittsburgh on Sunday.
Same for Dallas. The Stars finish out a homestand against Toronto on Thursday and New Jersey on Saturday, then visit Chicago on Sunday.
As for Vancouver, they're in Arizona on Thursday night, then will host San Jose on Saturday before seeing Vegas again next Tuesday.
With Brock Boeser injured and Quinn Hughes unavailable due to illness, here's how Bruce Boudreau rolled out his lines on Wednesday night.
The big news up front was Elias Pettersson's move to right wing, with J.T. Miller and Tanner Pearson. That worked out nicely, as the group connected for two even-strength goals.
Oliver Ekman-Larsson also had a good night in Quinn Hughes' spot — with Luke Schenn at even-strength, and on the first-unit power play. Vancouver went 2-for-3 with the man advantage, and OEL finished with two primary assists — one on Bo Horvat's power-play goal in the first period, and one at 5-on-5 on Pettersson's first goal, which made it 4-1 late in the second period.
As he prepares to make his return to his old stomping grounds in Arizona on Thursday, Ekman-Larsson is now at 23 points in 68 games this season. The length of his contract remains a concern, certainly, but for this season he has stayed healthy — missing just two games. He has seen his average ice time increase from his last season with the Coyotes — up to 22:21 this year, compared to 20:58 last season. And for the first time since 2012-13, when he finished seventh in Norris Trophy voting, he's on the positive side of the plus-minus stat — a respectable plus-3.
With Ekman-Larsson moving up, Kyle Burroughs drew back into the lineup on Wednesday, for the first time since late February. He suffered an upper-body injury when he was checked hard into the end boards early in that ugly 7-4 loss to Anaheim on Feb. 19 and has missed 19 games, though he has been practicing with the team for the last couple of weeks.
Skating on a third pair with Brad Hunt, Burroughs was on the ice for Vegas's lone goal, when Jack Eichel put the home side up 1-0 with a strong second effort against the flow of the play midway through the first period. But Burroughs also delivered a walloping nine hits in a physical contest that saw the Canucks out-hit Vegas 45-39 overall.
The Canucks have just come through a relatively light part of their schedule, and were playing their second game in a week on Wednesday night. The Vegas beat writers who I follow on Twitter all commented on Vancouver's strong start and heavy early forecheck — something that has been in short supply this season.
I wonder if they'll have the same juice for the second half of their back-to-back on Thursday night?
It was a strong night for Thatcher Demko, who made 33 saves.
As far as personal numbers, Elias Pettersson is now up to 24 goals on the season. With 11 games to go, he needs four more goals to match his career high of 28 from his rookie season. And he has been going at better than a point-a-game rate since the All-Star Break, with 29 points in 24 games. Currently at 53 points, his career high of 66 is also within reach if he keeps that up.
Meanwhile — Bo Horvat's opening goal on Wednesday night was his 28th of the year. That moves him one behind J.T. Miller for the team scoring lead, and is a new career high for him. His previous best was 27, in the 2018-19 season.
J.T. Miller picked up a pair of assists on Wednesday. Now at 84 points, he has obliterated his previous high of 72, set in his first season with the Canucks. He's currently tied for ninth in the NHL scoring race, with Mikko Rantanen, Roman Josi and Artemi Panarin. Pretty good company.
Thursday, of course, will mark the Canucks' final visit to Gila River Arena — barring any more strange twists in the saga of the Arizona Coyotes' home base.
As I'm sure you've heard, they're set to move into the new 5,000-seat arena at Arizona State University next year, a temporary home for three seasons while they construct a brand-new facility in Tempe. That project still hasn't been approved; there are some key meetings on tap this week.
I recently came across a fun item at
Hockey Reference, which lists teams' overall records at each arena it has played in.
In 30 all-time games at Gila River Arena / Jobing.com Arena / Glendale Arena, Vancouver is 14-11-0-5 for 33 points, or a .550 points percentage. Remarkably, that's the same success rate as Ball Arena/Pepsi Center in Denver, where the Canucks are 24-19-1-6 for 55 points in 50 games all-time.
And yes — among current arenas, T-Mobile has been the most hostile. Vancouver is now 2-5-0 for a .286 points percentage, but that's still not as bad as old houses of horror like the Montreal Forum (.207) or Boston Garden (.140).
Bruce Boudreau told the media on Thursday that Quinn Hughes is still sick and will not be joining the team for Thursday's game, and that Jaroslav Halak will get the start.
The Coyotes are currently tied with Montreal for last place in the NHL standings, with 49 points in 70 games. And they've got a horrifying list of injuries. They're missing young stars like Clayton Keller, Jakob Chychrun and Lawson Crouse as well as vets including Christian Fischer, Dmitrij Jaskin, Andrew Ladd and our old friend Antoine Roussel, who suffered a lower-body injury in early March that was expected to sideline him for six weeks.
As you've probably heard, Jay Beagle is back in the lineup after missing 36 games with a core muscle injury. He has one lone goal and no assists and is a minus-11 this season.
Loui Eriksson is at 2-15-17 in 61 games. He was healthy scratched a few times earlier in the season, but has been taking a regular rotation with all the injuries and has logged more than 15 minutes of ice time in each of the last three games.
In net tonight, Harri Sateri will make his Coyotes debut. You may have heard the story — after winning gold with Finland at the Olympics in Beijing in February, the Toronto Maple Leafs signed Sateri to a one-year contract for the rest of the season just before the trade deadline. But because Sateri had played in the KHL this season, he needed to clear waivers before he could join the Leafs — and the Coyotes claimed him.
The past couple of weeks have been a long process of getting all his paperwork in order. But the 32-year-old, who played nine NHL games with the Florida Panthers in the 2017-18 season, is now good to go.
And despite their spot in the standings, the Coyotes have the ability to confound their opponents, getting wildly outshot but keeping games close through timely scoring. That being said, the Canucks handled them easily in their only other meeting this year, beating them 5-1 at Rogers Arena on Feb. 8.
That should set you up for Thursday night. Enjoy the game!
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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