Wednesday November 25 - Vancouver Canucks at Minnesota Wild - 4 p.m. - Sportsnet Pacific, Sportsnet One, TSN1040
Vancouver Canucks: 22 GP, 8-8-6, 22 pts, third in Pacific Division
Minnesota Wild: 19 GP, 11-5-3, 25 pts, third in Central Division
The Vancouver Canucks have flown to St. Paul and have already completed their morning skate ahead of today's game against the Minnesota Wild.
Here's the lowdown on tonight's lineup for Vancouver:
When he has enough healthy bodies, Willie Desjardins continues to rotate his young players in and out of the lineup. This'll be the fourth healthy scratch of the year for Sven Baertschi; Jared McCann has been scratched twice but has played in the last 16 straight games and Jake Virtanen has been scratched five times, though three of those games came right at the beginning of the season. Adam Cracknell has sat out six times.
Sitting Baertschi tonight has helped to alleviate a potential nightmare for the game's broadcast teams—and for me, doing Stats. Christoph Bertschy, who's also Swiss, joins the Wild tonight as an emergency recall because Jordan Schroeder is sick.
The Wild's Zach Parise has been out since November 5 with a sprained MCL. He has just started skating again, so he won't be part of the action tonight. Other Minnesota injuries include defenseman Marco Scandella and forwards Justin Fontaine and Tyler Graovac.
Apparently Schroeder's not the only player who's under the weather.
With an undermanned team and the distractions of the impending Thanksgiving holiday, the Wild could be ripe to get picked off tonight. The team should be well rested, though. Their last game was a 4-0 shutout of the Nashville Predators last Saturday. They're kicking off three games in four nights at home against Vancouver tonight.
Devan Dubnyk continues to be a workhorse for the Wild. He and Ryan Miller will both be making their 19th appearances of the season tonight, tying them for the league lead.
Though Dubnyk's 11-5-2 record dramatically outshines Miller's 6-7-5 mark, the two goalies' individual numbers are remarkably similar. Both come into the game with .911 save percentages, and Dubnyk's 2.49 goals-against average is only a hair better than Miller's 2.54.
Dubnyk's expecting to become a father for the second time in the next week or so.
The Canucks skate in Minnesota this morning was optional:
Here's how the lines looked at practice in Vancouver on Tuesday.
I'll expect Willie to start with this rotation tonight. New arrival Andrey Pedan will most likely be watching from the press box.
With no games tomorrow on Thanksgiving Thursday, the schedule's unusually packed for a Wednesday tonight, with 26 of 30 teams in action.
The Canucks will be taking in the great Thanksgiving tradition of NFL football tomorrow, as they'll be in Dallas ahead of Friday's meeting with the Stars.
A couple of other quick items to note before I sign off today:
• There have been several stories in the media this week about young players who are waiver eligible being trapped in hockey purgatory—unable to get into NHL games but not being sent to the minors because their teams are afraid to lose them on a waiver pickup.
We've watched that situation unfold in Toronto for ex-Canuck Frank Corrado, who still has yet to play an NHL game this year. What's interesting is that when the Leafs needed to make room on their roster, they chose to put defenseman Petter Granberg on waivers rather than Corrado.
Granberg was drafted in the fourth round by Toronto in 2010, so the team has invested in his development for the past five years. He had only been in North America for the past two seasons and played a total of eight NHL games for the Leafs.
When the moment of truth arrived, perhaps the Leafs thought they'd have a better chance of sneaking Granberg through waivers than re-exposing Corrado, who could very well have been re-claimed by Vancouver. As it turns out, Nashville grabbed Granberg, so I guess you could say that moves Corrado up the Leafs' depth chart by a couple of millimetres.
James Mirtle has more on Corrado's situation in
this article in
The Globe and Mail.
He also points out that Corrado is far from alone. Jarred Tinordi also hasn't played at all this season in Montreal, and promising prospects like Dylan McIlrath of the Rangers, Jamie Oleksiak of the Stars and Tomas Jurco of the Red Wings have also been frequent scratches.
Mirtle's article includes a chart showing the 18 players around the league under age 25 who had sat out nine or more games through November 21. Most of those players have low entry-level salaries so they're cap-friendly roster options. The question is: How badly is their development being tainted by not getting into games?
• You're probably aware that Eddie Lack's off to a rough start in his new home in Carolina. Lack's now 1-4-1 with a 3.30 goals-against average and .875 save percentage in six games with the Hurricanes—not exactly challenging Cam Ward for that No. 1 job.
In his latest
30 Thoughts column, Elliotte Friedman explains that Lack is being asked to make a big change to his technique this year.
In Vancouver, coach Roland Melanson prefers deep. Here, counterpart David Marcoux wants Lack out further, saying in one team broadcast they like the idea of making saves with knees on the white ice. I was curious about that, because Lack has admitted his skating gets him into trouble sometimes and he prefers to set early. Watching a bit more of his work, you can see he’s asked to get deeper as the play gets closer to him. On the rush, or in the neutral zone, they want him out.
“Be six-foot-five, not five-foot-10,” as one coach (not in Carolina) explained. It also seems they are asking him not to set or go down as early as he used to. “I would assume that’s because they are worried shooters can pick that apart,” the above coach said.
Enjoy the game!
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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