Wednesday October 3 - Vancouver Canucks vs Calgary Flames - 7 p.m. - Sportsnet, Sportsnet 650
And so it begins...
Nearly six months after we sent Daniel and Henrik Sedin off to their post-hockey lives, the Vancouver Canucks get back onto the ice at Rogers Arena for the first game that counts in the standings.
I've grown accustomed to talking about events surrounding the team during the offseason. Setting up tonight's game seems almost secondary, but here we go:
After missing practice on Tuesday with back spasms, Jake Virtanen is back on the ice for Wednesday's morning skate.
My guess is that we'll see the forward lines shake down similar to what we saw at UBC on Monday:
We may see a change on defense, though. After being one of just two players, along with Henirk Sedin, to suit up for all 82 games for Vancouver last season, Michael Del Zotto is missing from the morning skate.
And—oh yeah, way to bury the lede, Carol: Elias Pettersson will make his NHL debut tonight!
Here's how the Flames lineup is expected to shake down:
Tonight will mark the debut of coach Bill Peters behind the Flames bench. New players include the other Carolina transplants, Noah Hanifin, Elias Lindholm and UFA Derek Ryan as well as free-agent signings James Neal and Austin Czarnik. As for the rookies, Dillon Dube is expected to be in the lineup at forward while Juuso Valimaki may draw in on the blue line.
The hockey mood amped up in Cowtown on Tuesday thanks to an early-season snowstorm:
You're not in Carolina or Vegas anymore, guys!
All signs point to Mike Smith starting in goal for the Flames, while Jacob Markstrom gets the nod for Vancouver.
If you're headed to the game tonight,
click here for the rundown of all the special season-opening events. There's the Party on the Plaza, a free beer or other drink for all ticket holders, new food options, an improved prize cannon, jerseys off our backs at the end of the game and big heads for the first 4,000 fans to arrive—doors open at 5:30.
Tonight's game is the first of a back-to-back series for both teams. The Canucks will start their six-game road trip at the Saddledome on Saturday night.
On Tuesday, the Canucks announced that they'll go without a captain this year, instead naming Bo Horvat, Brandon Sutter, Alex Edler and Chris Tanev as the alternates that will share the load.
The Flames also added to their leadership group on Tuesday night, naming Matthew Tkachuk and Mikael Backlund as alternates who will join captain Mark Giordano and incumbent alternate Sean Monahan.
Teams' approaches to the captaincy have been all over the map this year:
Montreal named Shea Weber as their new captain to replace Max Pacioretty on Monday, even though he's sidelined until somewhere around December after offseason knee surgery. Weber's a logical choice for captain; he wore the C in Nashville. But now? When he won't be with the team for at least the first couple of months of the season??
Brendan Gallagher and Paul Byron were named Weber's alternates.
In Toronto, the Maple Leafs have decided to continue without a captain this season—they've been without one ever since they traded Dion Phaneuf to Ottawa in February of 2016. John Tavares, Patrick Marleau and Morgan Rielly have been named alternates for this season: no Auston Matthews.
In Ottawa, all is quiet. On a team that's desperate for leadership after a tumultuous summer, no announcement has been made about how the Senators will proceed after trading captain Erik Karlsson to San Jose three weeks ago.
Stateside, the New York Islanders also haven't announced a leadership plan after the departure of John Tavares.
In Buffalo, Jack Eichel was named captain of the Sabres on Wednesday, with Zach Bogosian and Kyle Okposo serving as alternates.
The Detroit Red Wings are following the same model as the Canucks after their Swedish captain Henrik Zetterberg's departure, with Dylan Larkin and Frans Nielsen joining Justin Abdelkader and Niklas Kronwall as alternates.
The New York Rangers have been captain-less since Ryan McDonagh was dealt to Tampa Bay at the 2018 trade deadline and because everything's bigger in the Big Apple, they're going with five As: Chris Kreider, Mats Zuccarello, Mike Zibanejad, Jesper Fast and Marc Staal.
In Vegas, they'll continue without a captain, same as last season.
Three other teams have new captains this year: Oliver Ekman-Larsson in Arizona, Aleksander Barkov in Florida and Justin Williams in Carolina.
One of Bo Horvat's first moves with the new letter on his chest is to officially declare the Canucks' crackdown on Fortnite:
Old-soul Bo has said before that he's not a video-game guy, and that he generally prefers to be outside, so I'm not terribly surprised by this declaration.
I can see both sides of this argument. We're not on the road with the guys—and it's not like their recent record suggests that what they've been doing has been working.
I like the idea of trying to make the group tighter, but I dislike taking away players' freedom of choice. Some folks are more introverted and don't necessarily want to be out in group activities all the time—although I'm not sure that the high-intensity gaming is necessarily relaxing.
By the way, I asked Jack Hughes if he was a gamer at the Summer Showcase in August.
"A little bit, yeah," he admitted. "My friends and brothers like to play Fortnite, 2K, so yeah, there's a lot of things to do. It's not hockey 24/7."
It sounds like the Canucks' ban will be for the road only; guys should still be allowed to play when they're at home. And the coaching staff is making it clear that this is a player-directed initiative:
Finally for today—if you missed it, the NHL Executive Committee gave the green light to the Seattle expansion group after its presentation on Tuesday.
At this point, the goal for all parties is to get the team rolling in two years, for the beginning of the 2020-21 season. There's a major arena rebuild that needs to be done between now and then—and the city of Seattle still needs to sign off on beginning that work. As things stand now, the arena proposal that was approved by city council was contingent on the NHL franchise being approved, and that vote isn't expected to officially come until the league's Board of Governors meeting in December.
The question of labour unrest also lingers. The league and the players have the option of opting out of the current CBA in September of 2019, which would trigger the end of that deal before the 2020-21 season. Though we've grown accustomed to the idea of a lockout before every new agreement is struck, it is possible that the two sides might be able to come to terms to avoid a work stoppage. After winning major concessions from the players the last two times, it's likely that the owners will not opt to re-open the agreement this time around, but the players certainly could. Big issues for them are the structure of escrow and Olympic participation.
On Tuesday, Gary Bettman said that if the building isn't ready in time or anything else comes up, the debut of the Seattle team could be pushed back to 2021. But for now, it means we can start speculating all over again about protected lists and the next expansion draft...
But that's all for another day. The Canucks go into tonight tied for first overall in the league!
Enjoy the game!
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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