Vancouver Canucks at Dallas Stars - Tuesday October 21 - 5:30 p.m. - Sportsnet Vancouver, TSN1040
Vancouver Canucks: 3-1-0 fifth in Pacific Division
Dallas Stars: 2-1-2 third in Central Division
As the Vancouver Canucks prepare to embark on their first major road trip of the season, please note that once again the game will be broadcast on Sportsnet Vancouver Hockey tonight (channel 302 on Shaw in Vancouver) due to World Series Baseball on the main Sportsnet channels.
Game time is 5:30.
An interesting rivalry has developed between the Canucks and the Stars since Vancouverite Tom Gaglardi purchased the team back in November of 2011. Gaglardi was originally involved with the Aquilini family when they made the first move to purchase the Canucks from John McCaw back in 2003. After being shut out of the Canucks deal and
losing his appeal in 2008, Gaglardi decided to go buy his own team in another market.
Since taking over the Stars, Gaglardi has made great strides in returning the team to respectability. After bringing in new general manager Jim Nill and head coach Lindy Ruff last season, the team returned to the playoffs for the first time in six seasons. The Stars added more firepower this offseason when they acquired Jason Spezza and Ales Hemsky.
I think Gaglardi's influence makes it easy for Dallas to get up for games against Vancouver. Since he bought the team, Vancouver's head-to-head results against the Stars have gotten worse and worse:
2011-12: 2-1-1
2012-13: 1-2-0
2013-14: 0-3-0
The Canucks scored just three goals in their three losses to Dallas last season, dropping 6-1 and 4-1 decisions in Vancouver and a 2-1 contest at the American Airlines Center.
Adding further intrigue, the Canucks' coaching staff is now filled with former Stars employees. Former Dallas bench boss Glen Gulutzan is in his second year as a Canucks assistant, while Willie Desjardins and Doug Lidster arrived in Vancouver straight from their Calder Cup-winning season with the Star's AHL affiliate in Austin.
Willie also served as an assistant with the Dallas club for two seasons—the first, under Marc Crawford and the second under Gulutzan. He's using his trademark positive spin as a motivational tool to gun for the win tonight, according to
this article from the
Vancouver Sun's Elliott Pap:
There are lots of great guys on that team that I’ve coached and I have tons of respect for. I have a lot of respect for the organization and what does that mean? It means I want to win more.
Desjardins also explained his thinking in shuffling his bottom two lines, moving Linden Vey down to the fourth-line center spot, shifting Brad Richardson into the middle of the third line and putting Shawn Matthias on his wing. He's not shy, here, about setting expectations:
"We need some offence out of those lines,” stated Desjardins. “If you’re not getting it, it’s time to try something else. That’s all it is. We believe in our personnel and we just have to try and get a difference mix.
“It’s either Richardson or Matthias on the wing. I let them kind of sort it out and they decided that Richardson was going to play centre. I did think Matthias played better in the middle but we basically have five guys who play the middle so you’re going to have to find a spot somewhere else."
Many NHL-watchers, including me, expected the Stars to take another big step forward this season, but they've just been average in the early going. Solid wins over Pittsburgh and Columbus have been balanced out by a 4-1 loss to the Nashville Predators, a shootout loss to Chicago and a 6-5 overtime loss to Philadelphia in the team's last game on Saturday.
Believe it or not, Vancouver's 3.25 goals per game so far is better than the three goals a game that Dallas has recorded to date. As you might expect, most of the heavy lifting is being done by the top lines, with Tyler Seguin and Spezza leading the way. So far, Ales Hemsky hasn't been able to recapture the chemistry he found with Spezza in Ottawa. In five games, he has just one assist and has recorded a team-worst minus-four.
If the Canucks can keep the game close, they may have a chance to secure a positive result in the third period. Vancouver has given up just one goal in the final frame so far this season—the fourth goal from Tampa Bay last Saturday—while Canucks.com
reports that the Stars have let games slip away in all three of their losses.
Dallas also beat Pittsburgh last week on a winning goal scored with 2.9 seconds left in regulation, so that pendulum looks like it can swing either way.
It should be a fun game tonight. I'm looking forward to seeing how these two teams match up against each other.
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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