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Will goals be on the menu as the Canucks open their road trip in Colorado? |
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Thursday November 11 - Vancouver Canucks at Colorado Avalanche - 6 p.m.
The Vancouver Canucks may not be living up to expectations early in this 2021-22 season. But they'll face a couple of teams that are even deeper in the soup on this weekend's three-game road trip.
The Colorado Avalanche and Vegas Golden Knights were widely projected to walk away with the Central and Pacific Division titles, respectively, and potentially set up a rematch of last year's playoff series in a battle for the Western Conference championship.
But both teams have been ravaged by injuries and struggled to find their mojo.
Heading into a busy 12-night NHL schedule on Thursday, the Avalanche sit sixth in the Central with a 4-5-1 record and minus-6 goal differential. Vegas is sixth in the Pacific, now showing a bit of a pulse at 7-6-0, but still with a minus-3 goal differential.
At minus-1, the Canucks' goal differential through 13 games is better than both of those supposed heavyweights. And Vancouver's .462 points percentage off their 5-6-2 record is slightly better than Colorado's .450.
So, despite the disappointment of Tuesday's loss to Anaheim — where John Gibson stood on his head as he is prone to do at Rogers Arena and, as it turned out, Troy Terry could not be contained in overtime — perhaps Vancouver has a shot at getting this trip started on a winning note on Thursday in Denver.
After taking Tuesday night off, Thatcher Demko is expected to return to the Vancouver net. And there has been a bit of a shuffle on the back end, where Jack Rathbone has been recalled from Abbotsford. He is swapping spots with Travis Hamonic, who will play a couple more AHL games this weekend as he, presumably, waits for his full vaccination protocol to take effect.
Luke Schenn is also now on injured reserve, said to be week-to-week with what's believed to be a knee issue after he was hurt in last Friday's game against Nashville. Kyle Burroughs drew back in for the last two games.
Other than the tweak on the blue line, everything else looks to be status quo.
Will Hamonic be missed? Well, the Canucks' defense has been very good at even strength since he re-joined the team, giving up just three goals in four games. Even the infernal penalty kill did a little better against the Ducks. Just one power-play goal against in four situations was an improvement from the previous four games, which each saw two goals against. And Vancouver even got its first official shorthanded goal of the year on Tuesday — Elias Pettersson's equalizer with the net empty and 55 seconds remaining in regulation.
Even without Hamonic, perhaps the P.K. has a chance to gain some confidence in Denver? The Avs' power play currently ranks 30th in the league, with just a 10.5% success rate. And while Colorado's overall offense is a relatively humble 18th at 2.90 goals per game, that's still well ahead of Vancouver — 25th at 2.62. Tthe Canucks' power play has failed to connect in five of the team's last six games, but its overall success rate of 17.7% is still well ahead of Colorado.
Personnel-wise, the latest blow for the Avs is the loss of Nathan MacKinnon, who's expected to miss a few weeks with a lower-body issue. After missing the first two games of the season due to Covid-19 protocols, MacKinnon's subsequent 10 points in eight games tied him for his team's points lead, with Gabriel Landeskog and Nazem Kadri.
Cale Makar, once again, has also been dealing with injury issues. He has six points in eight games — and is a team-worst minus-8 on the Avs. But after missing the last two games with an upper-body issue, he is expected to play against Vancouver.
Anytime Makar goes head-to-head with Quinn Hughes, who he beat out for the 2020 Calder Trophy, it's time to update their tale of the tape.
Makar is now at 109 games played, and tallied his 100th career point on Oct. 28 against St. Louis, giving him 0.92 points per game and a career plus-minus of +21.
Hughes, who has been healthier overall, is at 109 points in 141 games played, for 0.77 points per game. But he has 12 points in 12 games for Vancouver this year — second on the team behind J.T. Miller and tied for second among defensemen in the league. And since Hughes doesn't kill penalties, none of the Canucks' troubles in that area land on his shoulders. He's actually +6 this season, tops on the Canucks — chipping away, but still -28 over his career.
Even without any penalty-killing minutes, Hughes' 25:46 of ice time per game ranks him eighth overall in the league — Kris Letang of Pittsburgh is currently first at 27:31. Makar's ice time this season has bumped up to a new career high of 25:00 per game. He's doing a little bit of penalty killing, averaging 50 seconds per game.
But this will be Canucks fans' first chance to see Colorado's other brilliant young defenseman, Bowen Byram. He's averaging 21:04 this season, up by three-and-a-half minutes from his rookie campaign. And he has appeared in all 10 games this season, with eight points and a solid plus-three. And it doesn't hurt that the Avs finally have a healthy Erik Johnson back in the fold. The 33-year-old dressed for just four games last season but has played all 10 this year and has been steady, with a team-leading 23 hits and a plus-4 rating.
Also on the Colorado blue line, Surrey's Devon Toews played his first game of the year last week after undergoing offseason shoulder surgery. And Jack Johnson also joined the Avs during the summer as a free agent, so here's a look at how the team is expected to roll out against Vancouver:
Yes, that's our old friend Jayson Megna centering the fourth line. Now 31, he's in his third year with the Avs organization since leaving Vancouver. And while he appeared in just eight games in the 2019-20 season and seven games last year, he'll dress for his ninth game of this season on Thursday. When the middle part of the lineup gets culled to make room for new contracts for star players like Gabriel Landeskog, players like Megna get bigger opportunities as a result.
Though injuries have been an issue for Colorado, the Avs should be coming into this game well rested. They've played just 10 games so far this season, compared to 13 for Vancouver, and haven't played since last Saturday, when they wrapped a home-and-home against Columbus with a 4-2 road loss after losing 5-4 in overtime the previous Wednesday. All told, Colorado has been a rather average 2-2-1 on home ice this season, but most of the games have been relatively high-scoring affairs at both ends of the ice.
That has also often been the case when the Canucks and Colorado have played each other. Their last two meetings were both nine-goal affairs — a 5-4 overtime win for the Avs in Denver on Nov. 16, 2019, followed by a 6-3 Vancouver victory on March 6, 2020.
So it could be a fun one on Thursday night. Enjoy the game!
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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