Tuesday October 16 - Vancouver Canucks at Pittsburgh Penguins - 4 p.m. - Sportsnet One, Sportsnet 650
Vancouver Canucks: 5 GP, 3-2-0, 6 pts, third in Pacific Division
Pittsburgh Penguins: 4 GP, 2-1-1, 5 pts, fourth in Metropolitan Division
The Vancouver Canucks will be without Elias Pettersson when they meet Sidney Crosby and the Pittsburgh Penguins on Tuesday, but the game could be an ideal chance for Brock Boeser to dial his scoring mojo back to 11.
You may recall—Boeser's coming-out party last season was his hat trick against Matt Murray and the Penguins at Rogers Arena on November 4, 2017. We all know about his two healthy scratches at the beginning of last season but did you remember that he had just two goals in his first nine games last year before that breakout against Pittsburgh?
Boeser went on to add two more goals in the Canucks' 5-2 win in Pittsburgh a couple of weeks later, giving Vancouver the sweep of the season series and Boeser a scoring rate of five goals on a total of nine shots on Murray, for a shooting percentage of 55.5 percent.
Unfortunately, Boeser will not get the chance to go another round with Murray tonight. The Penguins' starter played just two games early this season before suffering a concussion. He has returned to the lineup and will back up tonight, but Pittsburgh coach Mike Sullivan is choosing to go with rookie Casey DeSmith.
DeSmith is a fascinating story. Now 27 years old, the undrafted native of Rochester, New Hampshire doesn't exactly tick today's traditional goalie boxes at just 6 feet and 181 pounds. After three years at the University of New Hampshire, DeSmith started his pro career with the Wheeling Nailers in the ECHL, then worked his way up to the AHL.
In 2016-17, he was named to the AHL's all-rookie team, which earned him a two-way contract with the Penguins—and he was needed. When Murray was injured last season, DeSmith made 14 appearances with Pittsburgh, amassing a respectable 6-4-1 record with a .921 save percentage and 2.40 goals-against average.
This year, his save percentage in two starts is up to .935. He delivered a 4-2 win over Vegas and a 4-3 shootout loss to Montreal last week.
In Montreal, the Penguins also lost defenseman Justin Schultz for four months after he suffered a fracture of his lower leg.
Both teams took optional skates this morning.
Chris Bradford of DKPittsburghSports took his best shot at Pittsburgh's lines, as follows:
Brassard - Crosby - Guentzel
Hagelin - Malkin - Kessel
Rust - Sheahan - Hornqvist
Simon - Cullen - Sprong
Dumoulin - Letang
Johnson - Riikola
Maatta - Oleksiak
As for the Canucks, they'll be running the same lines we saw in practice on Monday, with newly recalled Adam Gaudette stepping into the middle to replace Pettersson between Loui Eriksson and Nikolay Goldobin and Markus Granlund shifting to centre on the fourth line.
Gaudette says he has been able to make some strides with his game during his brief time in Utica, where he played in all roles and collected four points in four games.
Utica coach Trent Cull backed this up.
Anders Nilsson will get his third straight start in net after delivering wins in Tampa Bay and Florida. He also picked up the win in Pittsburgh last year.
It's easy to imagine Travis Green riding Nilsson until he loses or until Vancouver's first back-to-backs of the season come up next week—on the road in Vegas on Wednesday and Arizona on Thursday.
As for Pettersson, there's no further update on his condition beyond what we heard on Monday.
If you missed it, NHL Player Safety did suspend Mike Matheson for two games for his takedown of Pettersson on Saturday night.
If you haven't seen it, the explanatory video in the link above is worth watching. The player safety team does draw a direct line between Matheson having been embarrassed by Pettersson earlier in the sequence to his choice to use excessive force when he slams Petey to the ice.
I had a chance to cover Matheson as part of Canada's gold-medal team at the World Championship in Russia in 2016. At that time, he was one year removed from Boston College and had been called up by the Panthers from their AHL team near the end of the season and for their playoff series against the New York Islanders.
Matheson was engaging and articulate with the media—and with just eight games of NHL experience, he took Ben Hutton's job on Canada's blue line after his late arrival with the team.
Now a very vocal advocate for concussion and mental health awareness, oft-suspended former NHLer Daniel Carcillo offered a very interesting tweet thread yesterday about how a guy like Matheson could find himself in this situation.
Carcillo also believe that Matheson's punishment should have been larger, saying the NHL took "1 step forward with decision on Wilson, 2 steps back with the decision on the most promising, talented rookie in the @NHL right now."
Pettersson's injury has been one of the hottest topics in the NHL since Saturday and if you look around, you'll find plenty of others who believe the play did not warrant any supplemental discipline.
I'm going to continue to hope that our boy's recovery goes smoothly, that he's back on the ice soon, and that Gaudette shines in an offensive role against the Penguins tonight.
Enjoy the game!
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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