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Dallas Stars at Vancouver Canucks – Sunday November 17 - 5:00 pm - Sportsnet Pacific, Fox Sports Southwest
Vancouver Canucks 11-7-3 fifth in Pacific Division Dallas Stars 10-7-2 tied for fifth in Central Division
The Vancouver Canucks will look to end their first three-game winless streak of the season when they face off against the Dallas Stars on Sunday at Rogers Arena.
After a strong start, Vancouver has just three goals in three games, none from the top three lines. With Jannik Hansen returning to the lineup from his injury, Tortorella juggled his lines at practice on Saturday. The starting forwards should look something like this:
Sedin-Sedin-Burrows Higgins-Kesler-Hansen Booth-Santorelli-Kassian Sestito-Richardson-Welsh
If those combinations stay in place, John Tortorella should have a better chance of balancing ice time across four lines and possibly creating some surprising offensive opportunities. The top two lines must start producing if Vancouver hopes to get a win tonight. I'm also interested to see if Santorelli or Richardson can kickstart the bottom six.
For their part, the Stars are facing no such struggles. After a slow start under new coach Lindy Ruff, Dallas has won six of its seven games so far in November. The only time this month the team has scored less than three goals was in its 5-2 loss to Chicago a week ago. The Stars are also getting solid goaltending from Kari Lehtonen, who's taking 'unflappable' to a whole new level:
#Lehtonen perches himself on the net last night in a blow-out. #OwnTheCrease #EFlex via @YahooSports http://t.co/9Op8hRyhMZ
— CCM Hockey (@CCMHockey) November 15, 2013
For his part, Canucks' backup goalie Eddie Lack is making every effort to help the Swedish contingent on his team, even when he's not playing:
Predicting good night for the swedes tmr after the goodies I picked up at Ikea. 10 tubes of Kalles kaviar!!! pic.twitter.com/JoG356sEaC
— Eddie Lack (@eddielack) November 17, 2013
It's an early game tonight, with puck drop at 5:00 at Rogers Arena.
By The Numbers:
- The Stars are on a five-game road winning streak.
- After an explosive 7-3 win in for Dallas in Calgary on Thursday, Tyler Seguin and Jamie Benn now lead the NHL in points on the road. Seguin got four goals and an assist against the Flames to boost his road scoring to 17 points, while Benn had a goal and five assists to climb to 16 points.
- Dallas is 26th in the NHL on the power play at 11.9 percent. Vancouver is 28th at 10.9 percent.
- Even if the Canucks win, they can't finish the night any better than ninth in the Western Conference. Vancouver is two points behind eighth-place Los Angeles, who will still have a game in hand after they play the New York Rangers on Sunday.
- Ryan Kesler will play his 600th NHL game on Sunday. He's 166-198-364 in his 10 NHL seasons.
Quick Hits:
- As Jeff Paterson points out, John Tortorella continues his strategy of willful obliviousness when it comes to sharing insight with the media:
Have trouble believing #Canucks Torts when he says he hasn't asked Glen Gulutzan a thing about the Dallas Stars ahead of tomorrow's game
— Jeff Paterson (@patersonjeff) November 16, 2013
- Last night on Hockey Night in Canada, Elliotte Friedman suggested that Shawn Matthias could be the next player moved out of Florida, and that Vancouver could be interested. Matthias is a 25-year-old centre with a reasonable $1.75 million cap hit. He's huge—6'4" and 220 pounds—but I'm not sure how much of a physical game he plays. He doesn't take a lot of penalties. Matthias' best offensive output of his career came last season, when he scored 14 goals in 48 games. He's 2-2-4 this season and has been averaging about 13 minutes of ice time, but that number has dropped in recent games.
I don't know a lot about Matthias. I like this profile better than Goc—he's younger and bigger, though they're both about the same price. I'd be wary about dealing with Florida, though, and I don't think Matthias is the silver bullet that will get Vancouver scoring again.
- I'm highly uncomfortable with Don Cherry's new crush on Kevin "Bieska," as he calls him. During last week's Hockey Night in Canada broadcast, he was touting our gunslinger as a Norris Trophy candidate. Last night, in the first intermission of the Edmonton/Calgary game, he showed a clip of Bieksa's fight against Andrew Desjardins from Thursday night and declared "He's my idea of a defenseman."
Never mind that the fight was probably the turning point that cost Vancouver the game, huh Grapes?
- Tim Thomas was the first star in Florida's 4-1 win over Colorado on Saturday night. Will Thomas and Luongo face off for the first time since Game 7 of the 2011 Stanley Cup Final on Tuesday night?
- Glad you enjoyed the mailbag blog yesterday. If your comments didn't get featured this time, don't worry—we'll do it again down the road.