Saturday December 18 - Toronto Maple Leafs at Vancouver Canucks - 4 p.m. PT - POSTPONED
With the Canucks set to take on the Maple Leafs on Saturday night and a followup game against the Arizona Coyotes on Sunday, I wasn't surprised to hear that the province's new 50% capacity limits wouldn't come into effect until Monday when they were announced on Friday afternoon.
But that wasn't enough to save the games. As I was halfway through detailing the latest Covid updates for the Canucks, Leafs and Coyotes, word has now come out that both weekend games at Rogers Arena have been postponed.
Here's Saturday's complete announcement from the league, which also includes the postponement of Leafs/Kraken on Sunday in Seattle, and the full shutdown of the Bruins and Predators through the holiday break.
Despite being ravaged by the virus — and having their entire coaching staff in protocols — the Predators eked out wins on Thursday against Colorado and on Friday in Chicago. They go into their pause riding a seven-game winning streak.
The Canucks, of course, are at six games. And the Leafs can now head home after completing just one game of their scheduled four-game Western swing.
Four games on Saturday's schedule had previously been postponed. It looks like Ottawa/Philadelphia and Edmonton/Seattle are both set to go ahead, along with three other games. So Sportsnet will have something to fill its airwaves for Saturday's Hockey Night in Canada broadcast.
It certainly isn't the big-viewership Canucks/Leafs tilt that they were hoping for, especially with Vancouver riding such a hot streak and the Leafs lurking near the very top of the NHL standings.
With the postponements, the Canucks have two games still remaining on their pre-Christmas schedule — in San Jose next Tuesday, and hosting Anaheim on Thursday. In hockey parlance, I'd say the status of those games right now is day-to-day. The league has been desperately trying not to put the entire schedule on ice, but as the scale tips to more than 50% postponements, a longer holiday break may be an inevitability.
Here's what we know about what has been happening with the Canucks since my last blog:
The players have stayed off the ice since their impressive win over the San Jose Sharks on Thursday night. Because the Vancouver Warriors lacrosse team took over Rogers Arena on Friday, the Canucks had been scheduled for an optional skate at 8 Rinks (Scotiabank Barn) on Friday, but that was cancelled. Saturday's morning skate was also cancelled well before the announcement of the game postponement.
Though there was some hope that Tucker Poolman might get released from Covid protocol after what could have been a false positive test, the club confirmed on Friday that he remains on the protocol list along with Luke Schenn, Juho Lammikko and Brad Hunt — as well as assistant coach Jason King. Tyler Motte was also added to the list on Friday. And Tyler Myers joined them on Saturday morning.
The Canucks also announced on Friday that the club had recalled defenseman Madison Bowey from Abbotsford. Saturday morning, Rick Dhaliwal is reporting that Ashton Sautner has signed an NHL contract with the Canucks and is also being called up.
Guillaume Brisebois played just 4:13 in his season debut against San Jose on Thursday before leaving the game with an undisclosed (non-Covid) issue, but there was some chatter that he might have been well enough to play on Saturday.
Sautner, now 27, has been a part of the Canucks organization since the 2015-16 season — mostly in the AHL, although he has played 23 games with Vancouver. Based on the numbers at
CapFriendly, it looks like that will be NHL contract No. 47 for the organization.
PuckPedia has now confirmed the signing.
The organization has three remaining defensemen in Abbotsford on NHL contracts. My understanding is that Jack Rathbone and Jett Woo are out with injuries. Devante Stephens appears to be healthy — he has played in all three games so far on Abbotsford's current California road trip, which continues this weekend in Vegas with games on Saturday and Sunday against the Henderson Silver Knights.
This was the list of Canucks' defensemen who could have been available for this weekend's games, as of Saturday morning.
• Quinn Hughes (L)
• Oliver Ekman-Larsson (L)
• Kyle Burroughs (R)
• Noah Juulsen (R)
• Madison Bowey (R)
• Ashton Sautner (L)
• Guillaume Brisebois (L) (questionable)
As for the Leafs, they have some absences of their own.
Jason Spezza had his suspension reduced from six games to four by Gary Bettman on Friday. He was then promptly added to the Leafs' Covid protocol list, along with centres John Tavares and Alexander Kerfoot, and winger Wayne Simmonds.
The Leafs have been in Vancouver for several days, after their scheduled game in Calgary was postponed amidst the Flames' massive outbreak. They got injured players Ilya Mikheyev and Travis Dermott back into their lineup for solid their 5-1 win in Edmonton on Tuesday, but after re-assigning defenseman Carl Dahlstrom and forward Alex Steeves to the AHL that day, the pair were recalled again in the wake of the club's Covid absences.
The Leafs are also missing three other players due to injury and illness: Mitch Marner, Nick Ritchie and Rasmus Sandin.
If there's a silver lining to the postponement, it's that the Canucks avoid seeing Auston Matthews while he's on a heater. He has 13 goals in his last 10 games, only went one game in that stretch where he didn't score, and is now up to 20 on the year.
Leon Draisaitl currently leads the Rocket Richard race with 23 goals, Alex Ovechkin has 22 and an interesting trio sits just behind Matthews with 18 — Chris Kreider, Kyle Connor and Troy Terry. That competition is going to be fun to watch as (or *if*) the season progresses.
The Leafs may also be thankful that they're avoiding the red-hot Canucks right now — still undefeated under Bruce Boudreau. Since Boudreau took over on Dec. 6, J.T. Miller is among the hottest players in the league. With nine points in the six games, he's now up to 32 points for the year — tied for 10th overall with Connor, Tavares and Sebastian Aho.
Brock Boeser's five goals during those six games tie him for second-best in the league through that stretch. Max Pacioretty has six. The other players with five are Tomas Hertl, Andre Burakovsky, Brady Tkachuk, Matthews and Aho.
A quick word on the Coyotes, too, before I wrap up for the day. Arizona pulled out a big 6-5 overtime win in Anaheim on Friday night, with three players in Covid protocols — Jay Beagle, Lawson Crouse and Alex Galchenyuk.
Of course, with every postponement the odds go up that the NHL will need that three-week window in February to reschedule games in order to still complete the season in a timely fashion. The league has said that many arenas have scheduled in other events during that timeframe but of course, everything is fluid at this point. Concert tours, circuses and other events could also have a tough time continuing.
When we're getting five hours' notice about game postponements, it's pretty tough to speculate about what the world will look like in February.
For now, I'll just send you good wishes. Stay safe, and follow the protocols.
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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