Thursday October 12 - Vancouver Canucks vs. Winnipeg Jets - 7 p.m. - Sportsnet Vancouver - Sportsnet 650
Vancouver Canucks: 2 GP, 1-0-1, 3 pts, fifth in Pacific Division
Winnipeg Jets: 3 GP, 1-2-0, 2 pts, sixth in Central Division
Brock Boeser will make his season debut as the Vancouver Canucks continue their Canadian-team homestand with a visit from the Winnipeg Jets on Thursday night at Rogers Arena.
After being healthy-scratched for the first two games of the year, Boeser will take Alex Burmistrov's spot in the lineup. He draws into a nice top-six spot, on the right side with Bo Horvat and Sven Baertschi.
Once again, this morning's game-day skate is an optional.
Lines were juggled during practice yesterday. Jake Virtanen started as the 13th skater, then got moved onto a line with Markus Granlund and Loui Eriksson. If Travis Green uses that combination tonight and keeps the Sedin/Vanek greybeard group together, then the fourth line will be made up of Sam Gagner with Derek Dorsett and Brandon Sutter.
No changes are expected on defense. Jacob Markstrom will make his third-straight start in net—and see if he can snap that streak of putting his team down by allowing an early goal.
Ben Kuzma of
The Province caught up with Boeser at practice on Wednesday.
After Boeser seemed to run out of gas as preseason wore on, Travis Green says he has shown more jump in his legs during the team's last two practices. Boeser says he has been hard at work on his skating.
It’s huge to build that separation speed and beat people wide like you see Jake do, because he’s such a good skater. I can get the explosiveness in the weight room, and the quick-feet stuff I’ve been doing on the ice after practices has been huge.
Burmistrov failed to make much of an impact in his first two games as a Canuck—pointless and minus-one. Playing primarily with Gagner and Virtanen, he has gone 4-for-10 in the faceoff circle. On special teams, he averaged 3:14 per game on the power play and 1:36 on the penalty kill, so his absence definitely opens up some ice time.
Green says Boeser will be used on the power play, which has gone just 1-for-11 and hasn't clicked since Bo Horvat's end-to-end goal against Edmonton. Burmistrov was deployed with Horvat, Baertschi, Eriksson and Ben Hutton on the second power-play unit, so that should be an easy spot for Boeser to slot in.
As for the Jets, I was on board with the idea that this would be the year they broke through to become legitimate playoff contenders, but it hasn't started out that way. Despite supposedly upgrading in net by adding Steve Mason, the Jets got blown out by scores of 7-2 against Toronto and 6-3 against Calgary in their first two games.
Mason allowed five goals on 20 shots and was pulled after a little more than two periods against the Leafs, then played the full game as the Jets built a 3-1 lead before allowing five unanswered goals to collapse against the Flames.
On Monday in Edmonton, Paul Maurice turned to Connor Hellebuyck, who stopped 37 shots as the Jets beat the Oilers 5-2. He'll get the nod in net tonight.
Offensively, keep an eye on Nikolaj Ehlers, who scored a natural hat trick against the Oilers, and Mark Scheifele, who leads his team with five points.
Over the years, the Jets have developed a reputation as an undisciplined team. They took the fourth-most penalties in each of the last two years after leading the league in 2014-15.
When the officials cracked down on slashes and faceoff violations during preseason, the Jets enlisted the help of former referee Paul Devorski to help them get on the right side of the law.
So far, it's working. They're ranked 26th in the early going this season, averaging just 8:00 of penalties a game. Vancouver is 10th at 11:30 but given the small sample size, the number is inflated by Troy Stecher's fighting major against the Oilers. The Canucks have been whistled for just seven minors in two games, an average of 3.5 minors per game, while Winnipeg has been called for 12 minors in three games, or four per game.
On those 12 penalties, the Jets have surrendered four goals, so their 66.7 percent PK is tied with Colorado for last in the league—though they do have one shorthanded goal. The Canucks have been solid in that department so far with just one goal allowed for a kill rate of 88.9 percent.
Dustin Byfuglien and Matt Hendricks are both out with undisclosed injuries. During their team day off in Vancouver on Tuesday, they took to the Fraser River to do some sturgeon fishing.
In Byfuglien's absence, 24-year-old defenseman Tucker Poolman made his NHL debut on the Jets blue line on Monday and is expected to play again tonight. A fifth-round pick in 2013, Poolman was a teammate of Brock Boeser's and Troy Stecher's at the University of North Dakota, where he played for the last three seasons.
Once again, due to baseball, tonight's game will be found on the Sportsnet Vancouver channel. Enjoy!
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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