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Los Angeles Kings at Vancouver Canucks – Monday November 25 - 7:00 pm - Sportsnet Pacific, Fox Sports West
Vancouver Canucks 12-9-4 fifth in Pacific Division
Los Angeles Kings 15-6-3 third in Pacific Division
The Vancouver Canucks will wrap up their humbling homestand when the Los Angeles Kings visit Rogers Arena on Monday night.
Vancouver is now 5-5-2 this season at Rogers Arena, and 3-4-2 against Pacific Division teams. They got spanked 5-1 at Staples Center back on November 9.
The Canucks have their work cut out for them if they hope to get the offense going on Monday night. Kings' starter Jonathan Quick is on the shelf with a groin injury, but backup Ben Scrivens has been outstanding. In six games since Quick went down, the Kings have gone 4-0-2; Scrivens has surrendered just seven goals and pitched two shutouts along the way. Offense has also been tough for the Kings to come by in recent games—their last game was a 1-0 overtime loss to Colorado. Expect a low-scoring battle tonight.
In addition to Quick, the Kings will also be without Jeff Carter (broken foot), Matt Greene (upper body) and Trevor Lewis (lower body).
Kings' defenseman Drew Doughty is pretty open about his dislike for the Canucks and
provided some bulletin-board material to Kings Insider Jon Rosen during his team's Sunday practice in LA:
On whether he is excited to go to Vancouver:
Yeah, it’ll be fun. It’ll be good to play them. I always have fun there – loud rink, and it’s fun to beat ‘em there.
On what he expects from the Canucks:
They’re going to bring a lot of energy. They make good plays. Obviously you’ve got to shut down the Sedins. We saw last time they came here when they’re not creating offense, they kind of slack on the defensive end, [and] we took advantage of that, and I think they were like minus-two or three. So as long as we play them well defensively and frustrate them in that sense, I think we can take advantage of the offensive game for us. We just need to keep that crowd quiet quick, and it should be good.
In this case, Doughty's barbs are spot on. The Canucks were bad from top to bottom, but the Sedins were each minus-2 and got owned by the Kings that night.
Quick Hits:
- There is some merit to the Canucks' assertions that they're doing the right things. Through 25 games, Vancouver is third in the league with 32.8 shots per game—a significant improvement from last year when they finished 19th with 28.1. They're also tied for seventh in shots allowed, at 27.4, while they were 14th last season with 28.9.
So—last year they gave up just under one shot more than they took over the course of the season. So far this year, Torts' more aggressive system has the Canucks taking more than five shots a game more than their opponent—yet they now sit even in goals for and against.
Is it just a matter of luck and bounces, or do the quality of the shots need to be better? That's what I'll be trying to isolate tonight when I'm at the rink.
- John Tortorella has been non-committal when asked if it's possible to "coach" goal-scoring. According to
this blog post from Mike Helka at the
Dallas Morning News, Ken Hitchcock of the St. Louis Blues thinks you can. That's worth noting, since the Blues are No. 1 on the power play, near the top of the league in scoring, got six goals in their last game from six different players and boast the league's breakout star of the year in Alexander Steen. "He puts his troops through scoring drills every day and stresses an offensive-minded approach for all four lines."
Could a similar approach help to kick-start the offense and/or the power play here in Vancouver?
- Elliott Pap of the
Vancouver Sun reported that there were eight pro scouts in attendance at Rogers Arena on Saturday night. A sign that a deal could be in the works?
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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