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Anders Nilsson starts, Jake Virtanen back as Vancouver Canucks face Blues |
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Saturday November 18 - Vancouver Canucks vs. St. Louis Blues - 7 p.m. - CBC, Sportsnet 650
Vancouver Canucks: 19 GP, 9-8-2, 20 pts, fifth in Pacific Division
St. Louis Blues: 20 GP, 14-5-1, first in Central Division
Lineup changes come after losses, so Anders Nilsson and Jake Virtanen will draw back into the lineup as the Vancouver Canucks host the top team in the Western Conference, the St. Louis Blues, on Saturday night at Rogers Arena.
Chris Tanev and Troy Stecher both hit the ice for Saturday's optional morning skate and will accompany the team on their upcoming six-game road trip. If everyone stays healthy, that'll force the team to make some roster decisions. Patrick Wiercioch has been sitting in the press box as the extra defenseman since October 23, so he can be returned to Utica, but beyond that? The Canucks will need to demote one more player—with only Brock Boeser and Jake Virtanen being waiver exempt.
Chances are, this problem will sort itself out before long. It's unfathomable that the Canucks could actually be completely healthy at the season's quarter pole.
No word yet on who will sit to make room for Jake up front tonight. It looks likely that Alex Burmistrov will be scratched again—that's four in the last five games.
As has been well documented, the Canucks are coming off arguably their most disheartening loss of the season on Thursday against Vegas—and have lost three of their last four. Nilsson could represent a shift in fortune. He was in net for the Canucks' win last Tuesday in L.A. and although his sample size this season is small, his numbers are terrific. He has a 4-1-0 record in five starts with two shutouts and is up among the league leaders with a 1.92 goals-against average and .942 save percentage.
He'll be challenged by the Blues tonight, who currently boast two of the NHL's top five scorers in Jaden Schwartz and Brayden Schenn. Both have 25 points in 20 games while the purported offensive star of their line, Vladimir Tarasenko, has 22.
It's fascinating to see Schenn break out to this degree after being traded at the draft. In his last four years with the Flyers in Philly, he averaged 22 goals and 50 points per season. This year, the 26-year-old is on pace to double that with 103 points, including 29 goals.
It's kind of funny that Schenn and Tarasenko would end up as linemates after playing on opposite sides at the 2011 World Junior Championship. Schenn tied the tournament record with 18 points in seven games in Buffalo and was named MVP but it was Russian captain Tarasenko who got the last laugh when the Russians staged their epic third-period comeback from a 3-0 deficit for the 5-3 win in the gold-medal game.
Since Mike Yeo took over behind the Blues bench on February 1, 2017, the team is a stunning 36-14-3 for 75 points in 53 games—second overall behind the Tampa Bay Lightning, who also had a late surge last season and earned 76 points in 51 games over the same stretch.
Given that the Canucks won just seven games after February 1 last season, I guess it's not surprising to see that they're last on the list over the same timeframe among teams that existed last season—16-30-5 for just 37 points in 51 games.
The Blues' hot start is even more impressive when you take their injuries into account. Alex Steen is back in action but the team has been without forwards Patrik Berglund, Robby Fabbri and Zach Sanford and defenseman Jay Bouwmeester all season.
Captain Alex Pietrangelo is the guy to watch tonight. Activated offensively now that Kevin Shattenkirk has moved on, the 27-year-old is building on his 14 goals and 48 points from last season with seven goals and 18 points already this year, in just 20 games. He's also seventh in the league in ice time, averaging 26:12 per game, and in the top 10 in plus-minus at a plus-eight. That all adds up to some serious Norris Trophy talk for the fourth-overall pick from 2008, who has never been a finalist but has finished in the top five in Norris voting twice.
As an aside—look whose name jumped out when I sorted the NHL's defensemen by plus-minus! Chris Tanev is listed in fifth spot at plus-nine. I know the stat is maligned by the analytics community but I think it still offers an easy way to assess which players tend to be on the right side of the puck, most of the time. It's also probably no coincidence that the Canucks have gone 1-3-0 and given up 16 goals in the four games that Tanev has been out of the lineup.
To wrap up today—if you missed it, some great things are happening for Elias Pettersson over in Sweden.
The accolades that Pettersson is receiving in Sweden are comparing him to some of the best players ever to come out of the country.
Pettersson turned 19 less than a week ago, on November 12. Not only is he set to play his first World Juniors this winter, he's also on Sweden's Olympic radar.
So far, his lack of size has not held him back. How long till we see him with the Canucks??
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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