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Sven Baertschi and Troy Stecher return as Vancouver Canucks face the Flames |
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Saturday December 29 - Vancouver Canucks at Calgary Flames - 7 p.m. - CBC, Sportsnet, Sportsnet 650
Vancouver Canucks: 40 GP, 18-18-4, 40 pts, fifth in Pacific Division
Calgary Flames: 38 GP, 23-12-3, 49 pts, first in Pacific Division
Sven Baertschi and Troy Stecher are expected to be back in action as the Vancouver Canucks continue their six-game road trip against the Pacific Division leaders from Calgary on Saturday night.
The lines at Saturday's morning skate matched up with Friday's practice, indicating that Baertschi and Stecher likely feel fit enough to return to action.
Both have been dealing with the after-effects of blindside hits to the head. Stecher has been out of the lineup for three games while Baertschi has missed 30. He was hurt in Vegas more than two months ago, on October 24.
Baertschi also skated with the top power-play unit at practice on Friday.
Jacob Markstrom is 1-1-0 against the Flames so far this year. In the season-opening home-and-home series, Markstrom stopped 33 of 35 shots in Vancouver's 5-2 win at Rogers Arena, but gave up five goals, including three from the penalty kill, as the Canucks got torched in a 7-4 loss at the Saddledome three nights later.
With plenty of offseason changes, the Flames needed a little time to find their new identity, but have been one of the best teams in the NHL for the last six weeks or so. Since November 17, they're 13-4-2 for 28 of a possible 38 points—tied with Winnipeg for third in goals behind only Tampa Bay and Toronto and, surprisingly, second only to Washington with just 44 goals against.
New Calgary coach Bill Peters has leaned hard on goaltender David Rittich to drive those results. He started 12 of those 19 games and amassed a record of 7-3-1 with a .921 save percentage and 2.41 GAA. Mike Smith's save percentage during that stretch is a more conservative .912 but his goals-against is actually lower—2.19—and his overall record is also good at 6-1-0.
Rittich is scheduled to get the start against Vancouver tonight.
Up front, the offense is still driven by the Flames' top line. Johnny Gaudreau is second in league scoring over that stretch with 13-19-32, behind only Nikita Kucherov, while his centre Sean Monahan has 24 points. Gaudreau is currently sixth in league scoring for the season with 51 points in 38 games. He's on pace for another career year and will break 40 goals and 100 points if he keeps scoring at his current rate.
The Flames' recent success has come despite a couple of injuries on their blue line. Michael Stone is out indefinitely after blood clots were discovered in his arm, and rookie Juuso Valimaki has been sidelined for the last month with a lower-body injury.
The injuries opened the door for the Flames' two second-round Swedish blue-line picks from 2015 to join forces on Calgary's third pair, and both Oliver Kylington and Rasmus Andersson have played well. Andersson was chosen by the Flames with the second-round pick that the Canucks sent their way in exchange for Sven Baertschi at the 2015 trade deadline.
Here's how the Flames will look tonight:
Meanwhile, at World Juniors, I was in the press box at a sold-out Save-On-Foods Memorial Centre in Victoria on Friday night for Team USA's 8-2 win over Kazakhstan.
I was disappointed not to see Jack Hughes, who was scratched from the lineup with an undisclosed injury. Apparently he won't be in the lineup against Sweden on Saturday, either.
For his part, our boy Quinn Hughes led all U.S. players with 20:11 of ice time on Friday and finished with a team-high nine shots on goal in a game where Team USA outshot Kazakhstan 66-13. Even with those big numbers, the game was more competitive than I expected. The Kazakhs had some issues with their goaltending, with a couple of switches over the course of the game, but were able to score their first two goals of the tournament—to the delight of the crowd in Victoria, which threw plenty of support behind the underdog.
Hughes finished the night with one power-play assist, and Canucks' third-round draft pick Tyler Madden picked up his first World Juniors goal in the second period—a wraparound roof job that originally escaped detection by the officials until the play was stopped and reviewed.
Madden was in high spirits as he held court after the game—said he knew the puck had gone in but made sure he kept playing until the play was stopped and reviewed. Coach Hastings also had plenty of praise for Madden, a late addition to the Team USA roster. With Team USA down one centre with Jack Hughes out of the lineup, Captain Mikey Anderson and alternate Josh Norris—both returnees from 2018—were the only forwards who saw more ice on Friday than Madden, who played 17:56.
As I mentioned earlier, the U.S. team will face a tougher test on Saturday against Sweden, which has extended its World Juniors winning streak for the preliminary-round portion of the tournament to 46 games with a 2-0 record so far this year. The Swedes haven't lost a round-robin game since 2006—when this year's crop of kids would have been around six years old!
Sweden-USA goes at 7:30 p.m. PT from Victoria, with the Finns facing off against Slovakia in the first game at 3:30.
Over in Vancouver, it's Denmark vs. Switzerland at 1 p.m. in the game that will likely determine which team from Group A won't be advancing to the medal round, then Canada plays the Czechs at 5 p.m.
Though he had previously indicated that Canucks prospect Michael DiPietro would be his main man in net going forward, Tim Hunter isn't confirming anything today.
I guess we'll have to wait and see whether that means a change in plans.
Finally, if you missed it: Richard Bachman was injured on December 21 and the Utica Comets are now on a three-game losing streak. Call-up Ivan Kulbakov gave up eight goals on 32 shots in 43:14 of action on Friday night as the Comets dropped a 10-1 decision in Syracuse, with Thatcher Demko giving up two goals in a 16:43 relief effort midway through the game.
Demko also took losses in his last two starts—a 4-3 loss to Binghamton before the Christmas break, and a 1-0 loss, also to the Devils, on Thursday.
The Comets will play their third game in three nights back at home against Rochester on Saturday.
Enjoy the games!
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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