Friday, November 5: Nashville Predators at Vancouver Canucks - 7 p.m. PT
Now 1-3 on their seven-game homestand, the Vancouver Canucks will get a chance to claim another two points when they host the road-weary Nashville Predators on Friday night at Rogers Arena.
The Preds are 5-5-0 on the season, and will be playing their fourth game in six nights against Vancouver. After beating the Islanders 3-2 in a shootout on home ice last Saturday, they eked out an overtime win in Calgary thanks to Matt Duchene's game winner on Tuesday, then fell 5-2 to Edmonton on Wednesday.
Nashville was a team that really flew under the radar for me last season — I remember they started really poorly and were expected to blow everything up, then rallied in front of outstanding goaltending by Juuse Saros and made the playoffs, but lost to Carolina in the first round.
Saros has played 8 of 10 games so far this season, and his numbers are pretty close to last year — a .922 save percentage and 2.39 goals-against average. He's also on a personal three-game winning streak; former Kamloops Blazer Connor Ingram was in net for the loss in Edmonton on Wednesday.
Ingram was re-assigned to the AHL on Friday morning, with regular backup David Rittich now out of Covid protocol.
As well as handing the starting goalie job to Saros following Pekka Rinne's retirement, the Preds are also working a number of young-ish skaters into larger roles this season. Gone are forwards like Calle Jarnkrok — claimed by Seattle in the expansion draft — and Viktor Arvidsson, who was traded to Los Angeles. On the back end, Ryan Ellis was traded to Philadelphia and the two players Nashville got in return have barely contributed: Cody Glass, who's now 22 and was selected one spot behind Elias Pettersson in the 2017 draft, is in the minors, while defenseman Philippe Myers has been healthy-scratched for seven of 10 games so far.
Eight-million-dollar men Ryan Johansen and Matt Duchene are both having bounce-back seasons, each with eight points, while Luke Kunin, undrafted rookie Tanner Jeannot and 2015 second-rounder Yakov Trenin have become staples up front.
On the blue line, Coquitlam's Dante Fabbro and 25-year-old rookie Alexandre Carrier are now carrying the load on the right side, paired with Roman Josi and Mattias Ekholm, respectively.
Averaging 2.70 goals per game, the Preds don't score much — but that number is still better than the 2.40 goals that the Canucks and their last opponent, the Rangers, are putting up. And at 25% efficiency, Nashville's power play has been pretty good, although it has just one goal in the last three games.
In the fancystat department, the Predators are in the middle of the pack with an expected goals rate of 49.98% at 5-on-5, according to
Natural Stat Trick. The Canucks have now climbed to one spot out of the basement in that category, moving ahead of Chicago to 44.00%.
The story is similar when looking at high-danger scoring chances. Nashville drops a few spots to 19th, at 47.45%, while Vancouver is in 31st, ahead of only Detroit, at 42.11%.
We know Travis Green doesn't like messing with a winning lineup. At the Canucks' practice on Thursday, he ran his lines the same as what we saw in the later stages of Tuesday's game against the Rangers, including Conor Garland with Elias Pettersson and J.T. Miller. That's also the case at Friday's morning skate.
Looks like Justin Dowling should be ready to draw in whenever Green decides to use him.
One other number that jumps out at me, looking at Nashville's recent results: while they actually outshot Edmonton 33-30 in their last game, a loss, they were outshot in all four of their previous games, which were all wins, including 40-22 by Calgary and 36-23 by the Islanders.
Unlike last year, the Canucks have been keeping things pretty close on the shot clock this season, and their 36-25 performance against the Rangers on Tuesday was their best differential of the year.
I'm interested to see if a relatively rested Vancouver group, perhaps buoyed a bit by the exciting win on Tuesday, can get a significant possession edge over the Predators on Friday night.
And before we get too far away from Halloween — I finally found the group photo from this year's Canucks party. Dissect at your leisure: the poster, Clarissa, has already done a good chunk of the work.
This pic is my favourite. Tyler Myers makes an outstanding Cruella!
Of course, Friday's game is also Diwali night, which is always fun and festive.
As for the Baby Canucks, they're taking their 3-2-2 record to Stockton this weekend, for back-to-back games on Friday and Saturday against the Flames' farm team, the 5-0-1 Stockton Heat.
Offensively, Stockton is being led by big centre Adam Ruzicka, who has 10 points in six games, while 2019 first-rounder and AHL rookie Jakob Pelletier is off to a great start with eight points. Abbotsford's scoring leaders are the Sheldons — Dries, with five goals and two assists, and Rempal, with seven assists but no goals so far.
The Heat are coming off a 4-1 win in San Jose on Wednesday — a game that was postponed from last Sunday, I assume because of the Sharks' Covid outbreak. I expect the Canucks will see goaltender Dustin Wolf in one of their games this weekend. He's off to a terrific start with a .952 save percentage and 1.49 goals-against average.
The Canucks have been using all three of their goalies, including off-season trade acquisition Spencer Martin. Arturs Silovs has been the best of the bunch so far, with a 2-1 record and a .929 save percentage. Mikey DiPietro's early numbers aren't where we'd expect them to be. He's 1-1-1 with a 3.27 GAA and .882 save percentage. I expect that'll get better as the season rolls along.
Puck drop is 7 p.m. on Friday night — at Rogers Arena and in Stockton. Saturday's AHL game goes an hour earlier at 6. And don't forget the time change on Sunday morning.
Enjoy the games!
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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