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Vancouver Canucks Game Day: April 10 vs Colorado Avalanche, Roster Switches |
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Vancouver Canucks vs. Colorado Avalanche - Thursday April 10 - 7 p.m. - Sportsnet Pacific, Altitude Network
Vancouver Canucks: 35-33-11 81 points 11th in Western Conference
Colorado Avalanche: 51-21-7 109 points 3rd in Western Conference
Yesterday's introduction of Trevor Linden as the Canucks' new president certainly adds an extra layer of intrigue to what would otherwise have been a mean-nothing game tonight at Rogers Arena.
You can bet that the TV cameras will spend plenty of time fixed on the new boss up in the general manager's box, musing on the team's future.
Like all good hockey people who aren't going to the playoffs, I've been immersed in golf this morning—liveblogging the first round of the Masters for Bleacher Report. Our good Canadian boy "Weirsy" (really—it says so on Wikipedia) shot a solid 73, though Graham DeLaet is off to a rough start in his first Masters outing.
But I digress...
During his press conference on Wednesday, Linden pointed to Joe Sakic's role in Colorado as one he'd like to try to emulate. He'll get a chance to see, first-hand, how a team can flip a switch from finishing outside the playoffs in last season (Colorado was LAST in the conference, if you forgot) to challenging for the Western Conference championship this season.
The Avs are two points behind St. Louis for the Central Division lead, and hold the edge in the tiebreaker. They're three points back of Anaheim with a game in hand. So, this team has a real opportunity to move up the standings and draw a more favorable playoff matchup. That Western Conference title probably looks pretty appealing right now as Phoenix and Dallas both continue to struggle—one will grab the eighth see and should be pretty easy pickin's.
The team that finishes second in the West will face Minnesota, who are enjoying red-hot goaltending from Ilya Bryzgalov and could be positioned to play spoiler. If Colorado doesn't grab the division title, then they'll play Chicago—with home-ice advantage yet to be determined. Also probably not the most appealing option.
In short, expect to see a motivated Avalanche team tonight.
As for the Canucks—the elusive Jacob Markstrom will get the start in net now that the team is officially eliminated from playoff contention:
At the morning skate, Torts also emphasized that Frank Corrado would be back in the lineup and would likely play all three remaining games.
Remember back to the beginning of the season when we hoped that Tortorella would be able to use Garrison more effectively on the power play than Alain Vigneault? It's been a long time since that ship has sailed.
Garrison hasn't had a point of any kind since the Winnipeg game on March 12. The last time he scored was 17 games ago, at the Heritage Classic.
Going into tonight's game, Garrison was the only Canuck to have played in all 79 games this season. He is actually one point off tying his career high of 33 points that he posted in Florida right before signing with the Canucks as a free agent, but has scored just seven goals all year. By comparison, he had eight in last year's lockout-shortened season.
He didn't turn into the second coming of Christian Ehrhoff or Sami Salo, and it hasn't been for lack of trying. He actually had seven shot attempts against the Ducks on Monday night, but every one was blocked; he didn't get one shot through to the net.
In other lineup news:
Higgins has also gone off the deep end after what was, mostly, a consistent season. For awhile, it looked like he could beat his career-best 52 points, but he has just one assist in his last 10 games.
The Canucks have one other mystery player in their war chest who we haven't even discussed. Mike Zalewski is a 21-year-old forward who was signed out of RPI in mid-March. Not the same school as Chris Tanev—he came from Rochester Institute of Technology.
Zalewski has remained with the Canucks organization since his signing, and might even see some game action before the year is out:
I'm very interested to see what kind of effort the team can manage against a very good Colorado squad tonight, and how Mr. Linden is received by the fans. As I said yesterday, I thought he handled himself well during his media obligations, and it will certainly help him to already have positive, established relationships with most of the local press.
A lot will depend on who else he hires to fill out his team, and how those relationships end up working. But there will be lots more time to discuss those issues as the days without playoffs pass us by.
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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