I hope the holiday season is treating you well. I watched Bill Murray's 1988 holiday classic "Scrooged" for the first time—pretty good—and listened to the Peanuts.
I've also got a couple of new hockey books on the shelf:
In "Behind the Bench," Craig Custance of The Athletic sits down with 10 NHL coaches to re-watch one of the most iconic games of their career. Chapters include Claude Julien with Game 7 of the 2011 Stanley Cup Final against the Canucks, as well as former Canucks bench bosses John Tortorella (Game 7 of the 2004 Stanley Cup Final with Tampa Bay) and Mike Sullivan (Game 6 of the 2016 Stanley Cup Final with Pittsburgh).
I'm also ready to dive into Sean Avery's "Offside: My Life Crossing the Line" (alternately titled "Ice Capades: A Memoir of Fast Living and Tough Hockey" in the U.S.). I haven't seen any specific Canuck content in the excerpts that have been published, so I'll let you know if something comes up.
In hockey land, the most newsworthy holiday photo to surface might be this one of Bo Horvat—and his walking boot.
The latest word is that we're looking at the second half of January for Horvat's return. Best-case scenario is probably some time after the bye week. Vancouver then plays four games in six nights before the All-Star Break.
Looks like Brock Boeser made it back to Minnesota to spend the holidays with the family:
As expected, Chris Tanev is back on the ice and taking part in the full defensive rotation. That adds a bit more drama to an already crowded blue line:
The empty seats in Buffalo were a talking point on Day 1 but for me, it's not entirely unexpected. There's some market saturation happening in the region, where Toronto was a co-host for the 2017 and 2015 tournaments, and Southern Ontario residents are expected to make the trip south to support Team Canada. On the U.S. side, an opening game against Denmark isn't exactly a marquee matchup. It's easy to imagine even people who bought tournament ticket packages skipping some early games.
All told, they're going to do just fine, attendance-wise, thanks to the 45,000 fans that are expected at New Era Field for the Canada/U.S. outdoor game on December 29.
As for the Canucks prospects, the Day 1 results were generally pretty positive.
Elias Pettersson kicked things off with a goal and an assist in Sweden's 6-1 win over Belarus, then Jonah Gadjovich featured prominently in Canada's 4-2 win over Finland, including the primary assist on Drake Batherson's winning goal.
Gadjovich played just 10:21 but made the most of his ice time, and hustled like crazy to defend and try to score an empty-netter when the Finns had their goalie pulled in the late stages of the third period.
On the Finnish side, Olli Juolevi was less prominent. He played 20:13 and got three shots on goal—was held off the score sheet but also wasn't on the ice for any of Canada's goals.
Will Lockwood also didn't record a point in Team USA's 9-0 win over Denmark but the good news for Canucks fans was that he was well enough to play after being injured in pre-tournament action.
And judging from this hit, he's feeling pretty good.
Dressing as the 13th forward on a loaded American roster, Lockwood finished wth 10:09 of ice time, lowest of any of the American players.
Just two games on the World Junior schedule today, which kicks off with Switzerland facing Belarus at noon PT before Canada plays Slovakia at 4 p.m. There are also 11 games on the NHL schedule, including Ryan Kesler returning to the lineup as the Anaheim Ducks host the Vegas Golden Knights.
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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