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Vancouver Canucks at Dallas Stars - Thursday December 19 - 5:30 pm - Sportsnet Pacific, Fox Sports Southwest
Vancouver Canucks 20-10-6 fourth in Pacific Division
Dallas Stars 16-12-5 fifth in Central Division
The Vancouver Canucks will be short on the back end when they meet the Dallas Stars on Thursday night at the American Airlines Center.
The worst has been confirmed regarding the injury that Ryan Stanton suffered on Tuesday in Minnesota:
As expected, Andrew Alberts will draw into the lineup. Here's hoping the Canucks can get an early lead which will allow them to use all three defensive pairings, since they also play on Friday in Chicago.
With "only" two regular defensemen on the injured list, the Canucks could consider themselves lucky compared to some teams around the league. Dallas is missing three of their top blueliners, and Pittsburgh is still competing well with five of their top six on the shelf.
Ben Kuzma muses
here on Kevin Connaughton, the former Canuck prospect who was traded to Dallas in the Derek Roy deal and is now helping to shore up their depleted blue line. He got his first NHL goal last Monday.
It's easy to lament the ones that get away, but the Canucks do have at least one more solid option on the farm. I'd love to see Frank Corrado called up to see if he can continue his evolution as "Tanev 2.0." Torts seems pretty determined to give Andrew Alberts a good chance to play—I guess we'll see if he has worked his magic on another one of Vancouver's fringe players.
Thankfully, Yannick Weber has been terrific since being recalled from Utica. He has points in all three games, is eating up more than 12 minutes of ice time per game, and is a plus-two. It's an impressive turnaround for a guy who didn't show much through the early part of the season.
Some interesting thoughts here from Torts. He's stoic about the depleted defense and pretty insightful about how hard it is to truly practice shootouts, where it's impossible to simulate a game situation.
He talks about "getting punished for pulling the goalie." I'm not sure what he means by that—is there a rule against pulling the goalie in overtime?
Word is that Roberto Luongo will start in Dallas tonight:
The Canucks and Stars have met once this year. Kari Lehtonen was outstanding, making 42 saves as the Stars beat the Canucks 2-1 on November 17, during that homestand we'd all like to forget.
Since Vancouver and Dallas met last month, the Stars have been consistently inconsistent, going 5-5-3. They're currently 10th in the Western Conference while Vancouver is nine points ahead in sixth place. The Canucks are two points behind St. Louis and San Jose but wouldn't move up even if they win—and both those teams play tonight as well. Minnesota and Colorado are just one point behind Vancouver and are both in action tonight, so the Canucks could slip back if they don't win this game.
Stars' leading scorer Tyler Seguin has also been streaky. He had four points against Winnipeg last week and against Philadelphia on December 7, but has gone pointless in eight of the 11 games he's played in since Dallas met Vancouver in November.
Alex Chiasson was the Stars' hot rookie early in the season, but he's now being challenged by the 18-year-old giant Valeri Nichushkin. The young Russian now has 17 points in 32 games and is leading his team with a plus-10 while logging 15 minutes of ice time per game. Not often you'll see solid defensive play like that from a first-year player, especially one so young!
Quick Hit:
- As I had hoped, Milan Lucic has backtracked a bit from his inflammatory comments about Vancouver after the story of his weekend brouhaha blew way out of proportion.
Here's Lucic's team-sanctioned statement, from the Bruins website:
This has been a very difficult week for me given the recent events that took place in my hometown of Vancouver. As I have had more time to think I want to make it clear that regardless of what has happened, I am still - and always will be - proud to be from there. It is home. While the actions of a few individuals have deeply upset me and will impact the time I spend downtown going forward, I will not let those incidents diminish the love and pride I have for the city as a whole. This will be my final comment on this subject.
Doesn't sound like he'll be pursuing legal action after all, does it?
I'm glad to see the situation put to bed. Now Peter Chiarelli has
moved on to his other problem child, Brad Marchand...
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