After a Monday morning practice at Rogers Arena, the Vancouver Canucks hopped on the jet to Montreal, where they'll start their first Eastern road swing of the year with back-to-back games against the Canadiens and Senators, starting Wednesday.
For the moment, Stecher is the last Comet standing. Jayson Megna is now on injured reserve, retroactive to October 28, with a shoulder injury suffered against Edmonton. Mike Zalewski was officially re-assigned to Utica on Monday.
That means Alex Burrows and Derek Dorsett are both expected to return to the Canucks' fourth line on Wednesday against Montreal, though Dorsett remains cautious.
Here's how the lines looked at practice on Tuesday morning:
The defense pairings were more fluid—looks like Willie's considering a couple of options depending on Chris Tanev's status.
Those combos are different from Monday in Vancouver, when Desjardins was skating Nikita Tryamkin with Luca Sbisa on the third pairing.
At this point, Tanev's return remains....I'd say "possible but uncertain."
I'd guess if Tanev feels really good tomorrow, he'll return to his usual spot with Alex Edler and Troy Stecher will sit—maybe just for one game on the back-to-backs. If Tanev's not feeling perfect, he jumps onto the third pairing with Philip Larsen—who stays in the lineup while the Canucks look for goals and a spark on the power play.
The Canucks are the only team in the Western Conference that is not in action on a busy Tuesday night. They currently sit in third place in the Pacific Division with nine points but are guaranteed to be lower by morning—the Kings and Ducks both have eight points and play each other, so one of those teams will definitely leapfrog Vancouver. Calgary, Colorado, Winnipeg and Dallas could also pass the Canucks with wins or, in some cases, single points.
The heat is now on Loui Eriksson, the $6 million man who has four assists in nine October games but has yet to score his first goal as a Canuck.
I was remembering the same thing. Eriksson was considered a bust for the Bruins when he was first acquired in 2013, partly because the man he was traded for, Tyler Seguin, lit up the scoresheet immediately when he arrived in Dallas.
Here's a look at Eriksson's stat lines from his three seasons with the Bruins:
2013-14: 61 GP, 10-27-37
2014-15: 81 GP, 22-25-47
2015-16: 82 GP, 30-33-63
Even in his first season in Boston, Eriksson's 0.61 points per game is better than the 0.44 points per game that he has managed so far with the Canucks. What I like about his Boston numbers is the arc of improvement—and he also seems to be a streaky scorer. Last season, he scored just twice in the month of October, but followed that up with seven goals in November, so maybe he's just getting warmed up.
As Eriksson gets more comfortable within the new system, he'll find his way.
Finally today—a quick note of clarification on the expansion draft.
We've talked a lot about the number of games that Luca Sbisa and Alex Biega need to make themselves "draft-eligible." Their status helps to protect only the Canucks' core players.
Think of it this way: all players with more than two years of pro experience *could* be eligible for the expansion draft. Out of that group, teams have two options when choosing who to protect—either seven forwards, three defensemen and one goalie OR eight skaters of any type and one goalie.
CapFriendly has done a great job of laying out the details for each team.
The Canucks are required to protect the twins and Loui Eriksson due to their no-movement clauses, so that leaves room for four more forwards and three defensemen to be protected.
The "exposure requirement" is a different animal. It's intended to ensure that Las Vegas has some *real* NHL players to choose from. Each team needs to make sure that at least two forwards and one defenseman are available on its unprotected list who end up playing at least 40 games this season or at least 70 games over 2015-16 and 2016-17.
As things stand now, if Sbisa or Biega doesn't meet that threshold by the end of the year, the Canucks would have to either (a) trade for a defenseman who meets the requirement, strictly so that he could be exposed or (b) expose one of their defensemen who *does* meet the requirement.
At this point, the only two blueliners who played enough games last season were Chris Tanev and Erik Gudbranson. Sbisa needs 20 more games this season to meet the qualification so yes, I'd say it's very important that he plays.
Due to his injuries last season, Alex Edler needs nine more games to qualify, but one would have to assume that he'll be the third defenseman protected. As things stand right now, that'd leave Vegas with the option of choosing from Sbisa, Biega, Andrey Pedan, Evan McEneny or Tom Nilsson from the list of Canucks' blueliners who are under contract through the 2017-18 season.
Like every team, the Canucks will lose one player—and yes, it'll probably be a forward. But it's important for Sbisa to get his games in order to ensure that Edler, Tanev and Gudbranson remain safe.
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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