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Bo Horvat will not play as Vancouver Canucks get back in action in Edmonton |
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Saturday January 20 - Vanocuver Canucks at Edmonton Oilers - 7 p.m. - CBC, Sportsnet, Sportsnet 650
Vancouver Canucks: 45 GP, 18-21-6, 42 pts, seventh in Pacific Division
Edmonton Oilers: 46 GP, 20-23-3, 43 pts, sixth in Pacific Division
Play a little, work a bunch, then play some more.
As their five-day bye week concludes, the Vancouver Canucks will squeeze four games into the next six nights before they get another four days off over next weekend's All-Star Break.
The action starts Saturday night in Edmonton, with a Hockey Day in Canada date with the Oilers.
A healthy group convened on the ice at Rogers Place on Friday, including Bo Horvat.
This is the update provided by coach Travis Green after Friday's practice:
Saturday morning, Green reiterated that Horvat will not play against the Oilers.
It's great news that Bo's projected to return any time this week. Originally, his prognosis had him pegged to play sometime after the All-Star Break.
Once the injuries started accumulating last season, the Canucks were never able to get their heads back above water. The bad news just kept coming. Once the mumps outbreak set in, the team had as many as 11 regulars sidelined as they came out of their bye week in late February.
This year, there's a much stronger sense of optimism. The steady return of missing bodies and two wins before the break offer hope that the team will start looking more like its early-season self as we move toward the trade deadline and into the stretch run.
Without activating Horvat, the Canucks already have 23 players on their roster. With Nikolay Goldobin already re-assigned to Utica, that leaves Brock Boeser and Jake Virtanen as the only waiver-exempt players currently on the roster.
Even with Brandon Sutter back in the mix, taking the key defensive matchups, I don't think Nic Dowd will get waived. He has averaged 14:13 of ice time in his 15 games with the Canucks this season. Travis Green has leaned on him heavily. He was one of the more vocal and accountable players in the locker room during a tough stretch for the team—not something we've historically seen from mid-season acquisitions. I think Dowd brings a character component that helps fill the void caused by the departure of Derek Dorsett—and that he'll stick around.
My guess: Michael Chaput will be put on waivers. He's no longer exempt for re-assignment now that he has spent more than 30 days with the Canucks this season.
Jacob Markstrom is confirmed to get his fourth-straight start tonight. The Canucks are on a back-to-back this weekend—will Anders Nilsson play Sunday in Winnipeg?
As for the Oilers, they're also coming off their bye week—and also riding a two-game winning streak. They went into their break after an emotional (and rare) win in Vegas against the Golden Knights—on Connor McDavid's 21st birthday, no less.
From there, it was on to Cabo for Edmonton's young captain.
McDavid has taken a step backward from last year's MVP season, but he played through a pretty serious illness during the fall and is still sitting in the top 10 in NHL scoring, nine points behind leader Nikita Kucherov with 52 points in 46 games. In a tightly-packed scoring race, he could still challenge for his second Art Ross Trophy if he catches fire in the second half.
But the Oilers have had trouble gelling as a team this year—and one of their better players (and better potential trade chips) will be on the shelf leading into the trade deadline. Ryan Nugent-Hopkins was leading his team with 16 goals when he left last weekend's game in Vegas after taking a hard hit from Brayden McNabb.
Without RNH, here's how the Oilers' lines looked at their practice on Friday:
One other crazy note about Edmonton: their penalty kill has fallen to last in the league, with just a 72.8 percent success rate. What's weird is that they've given up 11 power play goals in 82 shorthanded situations on the road for a very respectable 86.6 percent success rate. But at home, they've surrendered a whopping 29 goals in 65 times shorthanded—successfully killing just 55.4 percent of their home penalties.
The difference is inexplicable—but hopefully it's something the Canucks can exploit tonight. During Edmonton's last homestand over New Year's, the team gave up eight power play goals in 14 times shorthanded over four games.
Enjoy the game!
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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