Saturday November 21 - Vancouver Canucks vs. Chicago Blackhawks - 7:00 p.m. - CBC, Sportsnet, TSN1040
Vancouver Canucks: 20 GP, 7-7-6, 20 pts, fourth in Pacific Division
Chicago Blackhawks: 20 GP, 11-7-2, 24 pts, fourth in Central Division
The Vancouver Canucks will be shuffling some bodies in and out of the lineup when they host the Chicago Blackhawks for a rare home game on Saturday night at Rogers Arena.
Brandon Prust will make his return to the lineup after missing 11 games due to his ankle injury suffered on October 27. Considering how bad that injury looked when it happened, I'm impressed that he's back a bit ahead of the originally-projected four-to-six-week timeline.
It sounds like Luca Sbisa will also be back in the lineup after missing the second half of Wednesday's game against Winnipeg.
Radim Vrbata's a game-time decision tonight.
Another note on Vrbata: Pierre LeBrun officially reports
here that the Canucks have not yet had any contract talks with Vrbata's agent.
With the year he's having, I think many of us are assuming that it's just a matter of time until Vrbata's on his way out the door. LeBrun makes a good general point, though: economics, as always, will be part of what determines every team's personnel decisions next season and right now, they don't have much information to go by.
I think the Canucks want to see what effect the Canadian dollar has on the salary cap; clubs will get a projected cap number from the league in Pebble Beach next month.
The team is still being pretty vague on the Brandon Sutter situation, though they're now admitting that the issue is not as minor as they first believed.
Here's a best guess on Ben Hutton, who was unexpectedly absent from Friday's practice.
Hutton played right through to the end of the game on Wednesday—he was literally on the ice for the final horn. He'll be missed if he's out for any period of time.
This morning's game-day skate is optional, so I don't think we'll get any other concrete lineup information before game time.
Ben Kuzma went in-depth with a once-again-chatty Ryan Miller on Friday about red-hot scorer Patrick Kane in
this article for
The Province.
“He can draw players to him and really open up ice for other guys — that’s what really makes him unique,” continued Miller. “And it’s not just a quick little play. You think about him and he’s drawing one, two or three guys and it’s the backhand saucer pass through two guys and the guy has five or 10 feet to tee it up or give himself a better angle to get away a shot.
“That kind of playmaking is at a different level. You don’t give him time and space. You go after him and from a goaltending perspective, you get ready to go east-west.”
Based on that kind of in-depth thinking from Miller, I'm going to assume that he'll get the start in net tonight and we'll see Jacob Markstrom on Sunday against the New Jersey Devils.
As for Kane, he was held to just one assist on Friday night in Calgary but is now leading the league with 31 points in 20 games and is riding a 15-game point streak. There have only been two games all season where he didn't record at least a point.
With numbers like that, it'd be an understatement to say that Kane has shown good chemistry with his new Russian linemates this season. Artem Anisimov has proved to be a great fit in the Blackhawks' hard-to-fill second-line centre spot, and 24-year-old Artemi Panarin is second in team scoring and leads all rookies with 21 points. I'm intrigued—and a little scared—to see that line in action.
The Hawks are coming into town after dropping a 2-1 overtime decision in Calgary last night. Scott Darling played that game, so I expect we'll see No. 1 Corey Crawford tonight.
Chicago's now 3-0-1 since Duncan Keith returned from his knee surgery last week. Typically for him, in his first game back, he played 27:34 and has continued eating up big minutes ever since.
The Blackhawks do have some holes up front. Flashy Finn Teuvo Teravainen's expected to be out wth an upper-body injury and Marko Dano missed Friday's game in Calgary due to illness. Dano has struggled to find a place in the Chicago lineup this season, but you may remember that he was a Canuck-killer last year when he came to town with the Columbus Blue Jackets, tallying a career-high three points as the Jackets beat Vancouver 6-2.
It'll be interesting to see if the Canucks' swagger improves with Prust back in the lineup tonight. They were 4-2-3 when he was hurt and have gone 3-5-3 while he has been on the shelf.
He seems to be thinking the same way as many of us:
Enjoy the game!
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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