Sunday October 18 - Vancouver Canucks vs. Edmonton Oilers - 6 p.m. - Sportsnet, TSN1040
Vancouver Canucks: 3-1-1, 7 points, second in Pacific Division
Edmonton Oilers: 1-4-0, 2 points, fifth in Pacific Division
The Canucks continue their five-game homestand when they face the Edmonton Oilers on Sunday night at Rogers Arena.
Connor McDavid showed what all the hype was about on Saturday night, teasing his appearance at Rogers Arena tonight with a three-point effort in the Edmonton Oilers' first win of the season, an emphatic 5-2 victory over the Calgary Flames.
It took five whole games, but the Chosen One picked his Hockey Night in Canada debut to show what all the hype's about.
If you want to check out McDavid's highlights:
The ovation in the Saddledome for his first goal is pretty amazing. Oilers fans always make a strong showing when their team visits Rogers Arena. I expect they'll be out in force tonight.
As well as McDavid, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Taylor Hall and Nail Yakupov also scored for Edmonton, making for an historic night.
The question now—will the Oilers be flat tonight after their big coming-out party, or will they build off the good vibes from Saturday night?
As for the Canucks, Jared McCann's the odd man out tonight.
McCann missed practice on Saturday and was said to be "banged up" from Friday's loss to the St. Louis Blues, but did take part in Vancouver's optional morning skate on Sunday.
Sven Baertschi's back in and it looks like we'll see the reunion Kid Line of Baertschi, Horvat and Virtanen that connected for 10 points in one preseason game—against the Oilers.
Here's how the lines looked at Saturday's practice.
I assume the "14" centering the fourth line is a typo and should be "24," Adam Cracknell. The real 14, Alex Burrows, will continue on left wing—this time with Sutter and Vrbata.
Though he's getting shuffled away from his preferred centre, Bo Horvat, Vrbata's not complaining.
With every passing game, though, it looks more and more like there's some sort of rift between Vrbata and the twins. Hard to imagine the Sedins insisting that they don't want to play with him, so I feel like it has to be coming from his side. Let's see if Jannik Hansen can defy expectations and get productive on the twins' right side tonight.
Jake Virtanen's trying to keep his expectations for tonight at a reasonable level.
Team Yannick Weber's going to have to wait a little longer to get their boy into the lineup.
There's a group that includes
Pass it to Bulis and
Jason Botchford that's advocating to get Weber back on the blue line, particularly because his right-side point shot could help ignite the power play.
I'm not as excited about this idea. I can't shake the memory of Weber's terrible performance in the playoffs, where he was pointless and a team-worst minus-five. That erased my earlier excitement, when the Sedins talked about how they'd asked for Weber to be part of a power-play unit that heated up towards the end of the regular season.
Botchford comes at this issue from several different angles. Right now, it seems to boil down to the fact that Willie's more comfortable using Edler with the twins on PP1.
Does Willie believe the Sedins do work better up on the power play with a right shot?
“I don’t see it as much of the shot (making a difference) as much as the personnel,” Willie said. “I think hank and Danny interact with Edler really well. I think they can get on the same page really quick.
“I like Edler there right now.”
Injuries on defense are inevitable. Weber'll get his chance. But with just one power-play goal so far on the season—and that came from the second unit—the Canucks will need to get their attack on track sooner rather than later.
I'll be keeping an eye on Ryan Miller tonight after he absorbed that Bartkowski/Steve Ott collision in the third period on Friday. He did take a shorter practice than usual on Saturday, but was out for the optional skate this morning.
The team's indicating that it's nothing to worry about.
The Canucks need a better start tonight than they displayed on Friday against the Blues.
Could I be so bold as to suggest that Brandon Prust might want to make himself noticed in the early going?
Don't forget—tonight's game is the featured "Hometown Hockey" broadcast across Canada on Sportsnet, so it's an early 6 p.m. start at the Rog. Don't tune in late or you might miss Prust's fight!
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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