Friday November 25 - Vancouver Canucks at Dallas Stars - 5:30 p.m. - Sportsnet Pacific
Vancouver Canucks: 20 GP, 8-10-2, 18 pts, sixth in Pacific Division
Dallas Stars: 21 GP, 8-8-5, 21 pts, fifth in Central Division
The Vancouver Canucks get back on the ice tonight in Big D, taking on the Dallas Stars to kick off their back-to-back weekend on the road.
I am mesmerized by this class photo that was taken at the team's Thanksgiving dinner last night. The Movember moustaches add an extra dose of flavour, too.
Here's how the lines looked at the morning skate in Dallas, with Jack Skille swapping back in for Joseph LaBate, though it doesn't sound like this is how the team will play tonight.
There's no real consistency about whether or not the "B" should be capitalized on LaBate's last name, but this is how he presents it on his Twitter handle, so I'm going with it...
The Canucks announced after this morning's skate that they've called up Alex Grenier from Utica. According to
CapFriendly, that puts the team's roster at the maximum 23 players after the recall, not counting the five players on the injured list (Hansen, Dorsett, Rodin, Tanev and Larsen). So no further moves need to be made today.
Sadly, it sounds like Grenier has been recalled because Sven Baertschi can't play.
Grenier, 25, is off to a good start in Utica this year. The 6'5" right wing has posted six goals and 14 points in his first 16 games, leading his team in scoring and on pace for a career year.
Grenier saw six games of action with the Canucks last season, but has yet to pick up his first NHL point.
After a strong showing against the Coyotes on Wednesday, Ryan Miller will be back between the pipes tonight. Miller's now 3-7-0 in his 10 starts, with a 2.73 goals-against average and .908 save percentage.
As for the Dallas Stars, they're coming off a 5-2 loss in Nashville on Wednesday night and are 2-2-1 since dropping that 5-4 overtime decision to the Canucks at Rogers Arena 12 days ago.
The Stars are healthier than they were when they visited Vancouver. Patrick Sharp and Jason Spezza are both back up front, but Jiri Hudler, Mattias Janmark, Ales Hemsky and Johnny Oduya remain sidelined.
Expect to see Antti Niemi in net tonight after Kari Lehtonen took the previous loss against the Canucks. Goaltending has been an issue for the Stars again this season—Niemi's 3.18 goals-against average and .903 save percentage is better than Lehtonen's 3.38 and .884 but the Stars are last in the league with 3.38 goals allowed per game while the Canucks are tied for 24th at 3.05.
Last year, the Stars made up for their suspect defending by scoring their way out of trouble, leading the league at 3.23 goals per game. This year, they're currently 13th at 2.62 goals per game, but watch out for their big gunners. Tyler Seguin is fifth in NHL scoring with 22 points and Jamie Benn isn't far behind with 16th points. He's tied with Dallas' breakout offensive star of the season, 32-year-old Patrick Eaves, who scored twice against the Canucks in the teams' first game of the season and now leads the Stars with nine goals.
Eaves is already close to eclipsing the 11 goals he scored last season. He has only scored 20 once—in his rookie season in Ottawa back in 2005-06—and his career high is 32 points in a year. That's what happens when a guy gets to ride shotgun with Benn and Seguin.
The Stars' defense pairings have also been shuffled since we saw them last. Dan Hamhuis has been bumped down to the second pairing, with Julius Honka.
Finally today, a little more on Ben Hutton's new contract, which was announced on Thursday.
The deal was a proactive one for the Canucks, who got Hutton inked before any real concern had started to bubble up about his future status. A cap hit of $2.8 million might seem a bit high for a player who is perceived to have struggled a bit out of the gate this season, but just as Hutton's late entry into the NHL at age 22 last season quickly moved him out of waiver-exempt status, it also quickly moved him to a position of being eligible for salary arbitration right out of his entry-level contract.
That would have given Hutton significantly more bargaining power at the end of the season than his RFA teammates like Sven Baertschi and Andrey Pedan had at their disposal last summer.
Murray, Ceci and Dumba, like Hutton, were all drafted in 2012. The difference is that they were blue-chip first-rounders in their first year of eligibility. Born in April of 1993, Hutton had already turned 19 by the time he was chosen in the fifth round by Mike Gillis and the Canucks.
All three of those comparable players were also Hutton's teammates at last summer's World Championship—but Murray, Ceci and Dumba all played big minutes while Hutton was scratched from the lineup for the last five games of the tournament and averaged just 4:52 of ice time in the games where he was dressed.
Dumba, Murray and Ceci all signed two-year bridge deals last summer. Dumba's has a cap hit of $2.55 million, Murray's is $2.825 million and Ceci's is $2.8 million—so Hutton's in that exact same range, though his contract starts one year later. Let's compare their stats for this season so far:
Matt Dumba: 19 GP, 2-5-7, plus-4, 20:36 per game
Ryan Murray: 13 GP, 0-2-2, even plus-minus, 19:02 per game
Cody Ceci: 20 GP, 0-2-2, minus-7, 22:39 per game
Ben Hutton: 20 GP, 2-2-4, minus-7, 21:02 per game
On balance, Hutton's role on the Canucks does look similar to those so-called comparable players. The contract might be a bit of an overpayment for a player who was never expected to crack the NHL but if Hutton continues to stay close to these peers in terms of his development, the Canucks will have made out just fine on this relatively low-risk deal.
Next up—Bo Horvat. I imagine that'll be a lot more nerve-wracking for both management and the Canucks' fan base.
Enjoy the game!
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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