Vancouver Canucks close out 2017 vs. Kings; Will Lockwood out for Team USA (jim benning)

jim benning

Vancouver Canucks close out 2017 vs. Kings; Will Lockwood out for Team USA

By Carol Schram

Dec 30, 2017 • 3:39 pm

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Saturday December 30 - Vancouver Canucks vs. Los Angeles Kings - 7 p.m. - CBC, Sportsnet, Sportsnet 650

Vancouver Canucks: 38 GP, 16-17-5, 37 pts, seventh in Pacific Division Los Angeles Kings: 38 GP, 22-11-5, 49 pts, second in Pacific Division

The Vancouver Canucks will close out a largely forgettable 2017 by trying to string together back-to-back wins for the first time in nearly a month when they host the Los Angeles Kings on Saturday night at Rogers Arena.

The game will be Vancouver's 83rd in the 2017 calendar year. To this point, they rank 28th overall in the NHL with a record of 29-42-11 for 69 points for the year—ahead only of Arizona, Colorado—and Vegas, who have already grabbed 52 points in their franchise's first 36 games.

Of course, Brock Boeser is the Canucks' personification of Vegas' out-of-the-box success. Here's a look at Vancouver's top scorers over the 2017 calendar year:

1. Henrik Sedin - 82 GP, 8-44-52 2. Bo Horvat - 71 GP, 20-27-47 3. Daniel Sedin - 82 GP, 13-33-46 4. Brock Boeser - 44 GP, 25-18-43 5. Sven Baertschi - 63 GP, 18-15-33 6. Thomas Vanek - 38 GP, 12-16-28

Shoutout, also, to Thomas Vanek—who leapfrogged Markus Granlund and Alex Edler to move into sixth place with his five-point effort against Chicago on Thursday.

It's no secret that I wasn't happy when Vanek was signed last September—I worried mostly that he'd take ice time from younger players. Instead, he has proven to be a great mentor for Boeser. I also expected him to be injury prone—last year, he got off to a good start with the Detroit Red Wings but was suffering from groin and hip issues by late October, and he'd been unavailable for the 2016 playoffs for the Minnesota Wild because of an upper-body issue.

But Vanek has played every game so far this season—knock on wood—as have Vancouver's other key free-agent signings this year, Sam Gagner, Michael Del Zotto and Anders Nilsson.

It's funny how it's the Canucks' younger players who have been caught in the middle of the injury epidemic—last year and this year. The only players who did appear in all 82 games in 2017 were the oldest guys—Daniel and Henrik Sedin.

Vanek has definitely seen his responsibilities—and production—increase over the last month, since Bo Horvat and Sven Baertschi went down. Here are his splits so far this season:

October: 11 GP, 4-2-6, 13:29 per game November: 15 GP, 2-9-11, 13:00 per game December: 12 GP, 6-5-11, 14:54 per game

I'm not alone in thinking that maybe the Canucks should keep Vanek around rather than dealing him at the trade deadline. Here's the word from his agent, Stephen Bartlett:

What do you think?

It'll be interesting to see if the organization makes a move to re-up general manager Jim Benning early in the new year, before those crucial trade deadline moves need to be made.

Elliotte Friedman mentioned in this week's 31 Thoughts that GM Doug Armstrong has now been extended in St. Louis, on a four-year deal with a club option for a fifth year.

Friedman adds:

GMs without contracts for next season (that we know of): Jim Benning, Chuck Fletcher, Ken Holland and Lou Lamoriello — although I believe Brian MacLellan is on this list, too.

Here's the latest on the Canucks' injury situation:

Baertschi and Sutter both skated ahead of the healthy group this morning:

Jeff Paterson also reports that Chris Tanev and Alex Biega stayed out late after the main morning skate, so I'm going to hazard a guess that they won't play tonight.

The Canucks recalled Michael Chaput from Utica this morning. With just seven days left in his 30-day "free" stint before he'd need to clear waivers again, Ryan Biech does a good job of explaining why it's unlikely that he's being recalled just to sit in the press box in this Canucks Army article:

Also—you'd think the Canucks would be planning to use Chaput if they pulled him off the injury-ravaged Comets. You think the Canucks have it bad??

Carter Bancks was also injured in Friday night's 3-1 loss to Providence and will be re-evaluated next week.

Darren Archibald just returned for his first game on Friday after having been sidelined for the last seven weeks.

With that massive injury snowball showing no signs of easing up, the Comets have been madly recalling ECHL players and making other personnel moves to fill their nightly lineups. Still, they're hanging in at a relatively respectable 13-13-4-2 for 32 points in 32 games so far and are 3-3-3-1 in their last 10 games.

Now—a quick look at tonight's opponent, the Kings. After a strong start, they're still comfortably sitting among the top teams in the Western Conference and boast a league low 2.32 goals against per game and the NHL's best penalty kill, at 87 percent.

Jonathan Quick is back to his usual standard after missing most of last season with injury and up front, the team continues to be led by Anze Kopitar (40 points) and Dustin Brown (29 points).

Marian Gaborik is healthy again, with six goals and nine points in 16 games since returning to action. Jeff Carter's expected to remain sidelined until sometime in February due to that skate laceration, and defenseman Christian Folin is the only other Los Angeles player on the injured list.

It's expected that Jacob Markstrom will make his third-straight start tonight for Vancouver.

Finally—a couple of quick notes from World Juniors.

As I type this, Sweden has a 2-1 lead over Switzerland, midway through their Saturday game. Elias Pettersson picked up another power-play point, setting up the opening goal of the game in the first period.

The biggest Canucks news from Friday's outdoor game was Will Lockwood being carted out of the football stadium after slamming hard into the boards.

Lockwood was injured in pre-tournament action on a similar play, but was still well enough to make the team. This time, the prognosis is not so positive:

Olli Juolevi and the Finns take on the Czech Republic at 1 p.m. PT today, followed by Jonah Gadjovich and Canada playing Denmark at 5 p.m.

Enjoy the games!

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