Saturday February 3 - Vancouver Canucks vs. Tampa Bay Lightning - 7 p.m. - CBC, Sportsnet 650
Vancouver Canucks: 51 GP, 21-24-6, 48 pts, seventh in Pacific Division Tampa Bay Lightning: 51 GP, 35-13-3, 73 pts, first in Atlantic Division
The Vancouver Canucks will face a serious test when they try to extend their current winning streak to three games against the presumptive Stanley Cup favourites on Saturday night at Rogers Arena.
I asked #Canucks Green if Tampa is the bar by which all #NHL teams should measure themselves: 'hell yeah'
— Jeff Paterson (@patersonjeff) February 3, 2018
The Tampa Bay Lightning have cooled off since Christmas, with a 7-5-1 record so far in 2018. They're in the midst of an eight-game road trip that saw them play four games away from Amalie Arena before the All-Star break. Now in the midst of four in Western Canada, they lost 3-1 to Winnipeg on Tuesday before beating Calgary 7-4 on Thursday.
Lightning forward Nikita Kucherov still leads all players with 64 points in 51 games, but his scoring pace has slowed. In Tampa Bay's 13 games since New Year's, he has just two goals and six assists. With Nathan MacKinnon now injured, his closest competition is Phil Kessel of the Pittsburgh Penguins, who's second with 62 points.
The Lightning have also seen their Norris Trophy candidate Victor Hedman return on the blue line for the last two games. He ended up missing just five games with a knee injury that had originally been projected to sideline him for 3-6 weeks. Bye week and the All-Star Break helped minimize the impact of his absence, but he still returned to action just 19 days after he was hurt.
After a couple of healthy scratches, rookie defenseman Mikhail Sergachev has been back in the Lightning lineup for the last two games, but played just 13:04 in Calgary. Still second in scoring among rookie defensemen with 27 points, Sergachev hasn't scored since December 16 and has just one assist in his last eight games. He was back on the second pairing at today's morning skate, with Anton Stralman.
Tampa Bay's most important player this season has been goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy. In 50 starts last year as a 22-year-old, he showed that he has what it takes to be an NHL starter. This year, he currently leads the league in wins (30) and shutouts (7) and is in the top four among starters with a 2.23 goals-against average and .930 save percentage.
It's expected that Vasilevskiy will get the nod tonight, against Jacob Markstrom for Vancouver.
Currently on the injured list for Tampa Bay: Ondrej Palat, with a fairly significant lower-body injury. Dan Girardi missed Thursday's game in Calgary with a lower-body injury and is questionable for tonight.
As for the Canucks, Sam Gagner didn't skate this morning and won't play tonight.
Benning: Gagner was experiencing concussion-like symptoms after Thursday's hit on Tomas Junco. #Canucks
— Ben Kuzma (@benkuzma) February 2, 2018
No update from Coach Green on Gagner. "He's feeling better."
— Vancouver Canucks (@Canucks) February 3, 2018
Dowd will play vs. Lightning.
It's expected that Ben Hutton and Alex Biega will be the healthy scratches once again on the blue line.
Tonight marks Henrik Sedin's 1,300th NHL game, all of them played with the Canucks. That puts him 62nd overall on the all-time games played list, passing the likes of Dave Keon, Pierre Turgeon, Phil Esposito, Scott Niedermayer, Rob Blake and Ryan Smyth this season.
The only Swedes who have played more NHL games than Henrik are Nicklas Lidstrom (1,564) and Mats Sundin (1,346).
With Gagner's current injury, Henrik is one of only three Canucks to have appeared in every game this season, along with Thomas Vanek and Michael Del Zotto. He played all 82 games last year, too—more impressive durability from a player who strung together an Ironman streak of 679 consecutive games, seventh-longest in NHL history, earlier in his career.
Will Henrik play long enough to pass Sundin next season? The Magic 8 Ball says "Ask again later."
Iain MacIntyre reported on Friday that the twins have decided to wait until the end of the year before committing to any future plans.
Summit meeting between GM Benning and Sedins failed to produce a decision on Danny+Hank's future. Twins will decide after this season whether to keep playing for #Canucks.https://t.co/P73Bpd1xql
— Iain MacIntyre (@imacSportsnet) February 2, 2018
"This was our plan all along," Henrik said after Thursday's win over Chicago. "There was no secret; we came out and said we were going to play this year and after that we’d make a decision."
"I think it’s a lot of little things (that will factor into the decision)," Henrik added. "Family is No. 1. It’s how we feel when we step on the ice, if we feel we can help this team take the next step, a lot of little things.
"If we sit down after the season and we feel this team needs the young guys to take another step and that only happens when we step away, then that’s part of (the discussion) too. But I don’t think that’s the case."
"We don’t have enough other players who are ready to take their spots," said Jim Benning. "They’re going to score 100 points between the two of them, and we want to be competitive when we transition these young players into our lineup. The (Sedins) help the team be competitive.
"We could have 10, 12, maybe 14 guys in Utica (in the American Hockey League) next year developing so that they can play in the NHL at some point. And maybe one or two of them step in right away like Brock did this year. Training camp will decide that. But we have to develop those players properly."
With the trade deadline now just 16 days away, the Sedin story has been put to bed until the offseason.
Enjoy the game!