Tuesday January 7 - Vancouver Canucks at Tampa Bay Lightning - 4 p.m. - Sportsnet Pacific, Sportsnet 650
Vancouver Canucks: 42 GP, 23-15-4, 50 pts, fourth in Pacific Division
Tampa Bay Lightning: 41 GP, 24-13-4, 52 pts, third in Atlantic Division
The two hottest teams in the NHL will do battle when the Vancouver Canucks kick off their five-game road trip on Tuesday at Amalie Arena, against the Tampa Bay Lightning.
Both the Canucks and Lightning are riding seven-game winning streaks, which have pulled them back into playoff contention. Tampa Bay is now just one point behind Toronto in the Atlantic Division, with three games in hand, while the Canucks got bumped down the Pacific Division standings on Monday night when the Oilers beat the Leafs.
According to
NHL.com, it's just the second time in NHL history that two teams with winning streaks of seven games or more have gone head-to-head. I remember the other time, too — when Columbus was riding that 14-game streak when they beat Minnesota, on a 12-game streak, by a 4-2 score on New Year's Eve, 2016.
If the Canucks win tonight, they'll tie the second-longest winning streak in franchise history, which came between Dec. 23, 2010 and Jan. 7, 2011. The longest ever was 10 games, during the West Coast Express years in 2002.
Not surprisingly, Travis Green is sticking with what has been working for him — going with the same lineup, and Jacob Markstrom in net. The game may also carry some special significance for J.T. Miller, who returns to Tampa for the first time since he was traded away on draft weekend.
During his 92 games over two seasons with the Lightning, Miller posted 23 goals and 42 assists for 65 points — with 10 of those goals and 18 points coming in the last 19 games of the 2017-18 season, after he was acquired at the trade deadline.
While he was with the Rangers, Miller averaged half a point a game. That went up to 0.65 during his time in Tampa and this year, his 15 goals and 25 assists have him at 0.95 points per game — and tied with Alex Ovechkin, Evgeny Kuznetsov and Patrik Laine for 25th overall in league scoring.
Miller averaged just 14:40 of ice time per game during his full season in Tampa in 2018-19. This year, he's at 20:05 with the Canucks — second among all forwards on the team and just nine seconds a game behind perpetual workhorse Bo Horvat.
Despite playing the wing on the Lotto Line, Miller takes the majority of their faceoffs — and among players who have taken more than 100 draws this season, Miller's success rate is second in the entire league at 60.5 percent, only behind Claude Giroux (61.2 percent). This is a marked improvement for Miller — he was 50.8 percent in Tampa and 49.3 percent with the Rangers.
The Malhotra effect?
Like last year, Horvat is second only to Ryan O'Reilly in the number of draws taken so far this season. He's at 56.6 percent, which ranks him 12th in the league — and Jay Beagle's also strong on draws, third overall at 60.2 percent.
No other team has three face-off men performing that well. The Flyers are the closest with Giroux plus Sean Couturier (fourth) and Scott Laughton (18th).
As another guy who spent most of his career in the Eastern Conference, Beagle's the Canuck with the insight on the Lightning and how they play — and on what Miller was like as an opponent.
As for the Lightning, after all the heat they took for their slow start to the season, they seem to be grinding into gear now. Nikita Kucherov has tallied eight points during Tampa Bay's winning streak and has slithered his way up to 12th in the league scoring race, with 45 points, while Steven Stamkos and Victor Hedman are not far behind at 39.
As a team, the Lightning are third-best offensively, averaging 3.56 goals per game, despite ranking 11th with 32.5 shots per game. Defensively, they're middle of the pack, allowing an average of 3.05 goals per game. After winning the Vezina Trophy last season, Andrei Vasilevskiy is 19-9-2 this year with a 2.77 goals-against and .911 save percentage — although those numbers have been trending in a positive direction of late.
It's hard to know what the Canucks will see from Vasilevskiy on Tuesday. He has been in net for five of the seven games on the winning streak and has given up one goal three times, but allowed four in the other two.
Here's how the Lightning rolled their lines at Tuesday's morning skate:
Ryan McDonagh suffered an upper-body injury against Ottawa last Saturday, and won't be in the lineup against the Canucks. Other than that, the Lightning are healthy.
One other interesting note from the administrative side on Tuesday — the Canucks announced that Chris Gear has been promoted to assistant general manager and chief legal officer after spending the last four seasons working in the hockey operations department. Gear initially joined Canucks Sports and Entertainment nine years ago after working as director and senior legal counsel for VANOC, the group that organized the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.
According to
Patrick Johnston of The Province, Gear's new title won't see a significant change in his role. He and Jonathan Wall, who runs the teams analytics department, are the guys who keep the Canucks salary-cap compliant, and Gear also handles contracts as well as looking after the operations of the Utica Comets.
The Canucks have run a lean front office during the Benning era. Gear joins John Weisbrod in the assistant general manager role.
After that business talk, let's wrap up today with a dose of cuteness:
Enjoy the game!
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
Join the Discussion:
»