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Vancouver Canucks approaching full health, get back to work in Edmonton |
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Thursday December 27 - Vancouver Canucks at Edmonton Oilers - 6 p.m. - Sportsnet Pacific, Sportsnet One, Sportsnet 650
Vancouver Canucks: 39 GP, 17-18-4, 38 points, sixth in Pacific Division
Edmonton Oilers: 36 GP, 18-15-3, 39 points, fifth in Pacific Division
After one full day of World Juniors overload on Wednesday, the Vancouver Canucks and the rest of their NHL brethren are back to compete for our hockey attention. While they vacate Rogers Arena for the next 10 days, the Canucks will embark on a six-team road trip that kicks off Thursday night in Edmonton as part of a 13-game NHL slate.
Though it looks like the Canucks will go with the same lineup that finished out the pre-Christmas schedule with that 1-0 loss to Edmonton, all hands are on deck for Thursday's morning skate.
If Sven Baertschi, Brandon Sutter and Troy Stecher are all close to returning to the lineup—and there are no new injuries, of course—the Canucks will have some pretty big decisions to make in order to stay under the 23-man roster limit. If everyone's ready to come back, they'll have two extra bodies. Only forwards Adam Gaudette, Brock Boeser and Elias Pettersson are waiver exempt, and Alex Biega has now been up with the team for more than two months. He'd need to clear waivers again before he could be re-assigned to Utica.
Sutter is skating in a regular jersey today, so he looks like he's ready for contact.
I never minded Jacob Markstrom's mask with the ears, but this new one does look a little more—intimidating? Is that the right word?
As for the Oilers, here's how their lines ran at Thursday's morning skate.
After their successful honeymoon period when Ken Hitchcock took over as Edmonton's head coach, the Oilers lurched into the holiday break on a three-game losing streak. It began with that 4-2 loss to Vancouver at Rogers Arena on December 18 before subsequent losses to St. Louis and Tampa Bay, leaving the Oilers just one point ahead of the Canucks in the Pacific Division standings.
With a regulation win tonight, the Canucks could leapfrog Edmonton and would have a chance to move into the second wild-card spot in the Western Conference—as long as Dallas also loses in Nashville.
With just two of the six games on this trip against conference rivals, the Canucks need to have success against the Oilers on Thursday and the Flames on Saturday to help keep their heads above water in the playoff race.
Though the Canucks won their only other meeting with the Oilers so far this season, they're 1-3-1 last five visits to Edmonton. Their only win at Rogers Place since it opened at the beginning of the 2016-17 season was the 3-2 shootout victory on New Year's Eve 2016, where Bo Horvat scored the shootout winner.
As for World Juniors—I was more interested in seeing how Team USA kicked off its tournament and the Sweden vs. Finland matchup in Victoria than I was in watching Mikey DiPietro face the same number of shots as Canada scored goals against Denmark on Wednesday, so I stayed home to watch as much as I could on TV.
For his part, DiPietro did stop all 14 shots he faced in Canada's blowout win. And Pitbull's "Don't Stop the Party" is a perfectly lively and cheerful goal song that seemed appropriate for the fans to hear 14 times in one game. I am going to get to the rink later today to see how Canada's other netminder, Ian Scott, fares against the Swiss. They pushed the Czechs to overtime in their opener on Wednesday and could have even eked out a win if they'd been able to capitalize on their power play.
As it was, captain Nando Eggenberger scored the only goal for Switzerland. You've heard his marvellous name around these parts before: he was an invitee for the Canucks this summer at their development camp and at September's Young Stars Classic.
Over in Victoria, Team USA didn't exactly generate a boatload of confidence with their 2-1 come-from-behind win over Slovakia, but they escaped with their full three points. Quinn Hughes led all American defensemen with 19:26 of ice time but finished the game with just one shot on goal, while his brother Jack had the primary assist on the power-play goal by Mikey Anderson that tied the game 1-1 early in the period.
The fun part, though? Canucks' prospect Tyler Madden was terrific. Despite his 150-pound frame, Madden was a high-energy buzzsaw throughout the game, forechecking hard and ultimately earning the primary assist on Evan Barratt's game-winning goal, helping to get the puck out of the corner before going to the net.
Though he has been around pro hockey all his life as the son of former NHLer John Madden, Tyler is a kid whose stock is rising quickly. He sounds like he'll need to crank his hockey-cliche-generating-machine through a few more cycles before the word salad starts coming out just right.
Canadian coach Tim Hunter chose to name his full roster early and give his group some time to generate chemistry—a decision that looked good on Day 1. U.S. coach Mike Hastings waited until the last minute to make his final roster cuts, so the U.S. team may still need a little more time to get fully in sync.
The same could be true for Finland—a talent-rich group that played an uninspired, penalty-filled game in their 2-1 loss to the Swedes in Wednesday's late game in Victoria. Vegas defense prospect Erik Brannstrom had both goals for the Swedes, both on the power play.
Canucks' defense prospect Toni Utunen played his usual low-key game, with one shot on goal in 17:18 of ice time. He was not being used on the penalty kill during either of Sweden's goals.
Finland is back in action Thursday in the late game against Kazakhstan at 7:30 p.m. PT from Victoria, while Team USA has a day off before facing the Kazakhs on Friday.
With that, you're up to date for now.
Enjoy the games!
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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