Sunday November 8 - Vancouver Canucks at New Jersey Devils - 2 p.m. - Sportsnet Pacific, TSN1040
Vancouver Canucks: 14 GP, 6-4-4, 16 pts, second in Pacific Division
New Jersey Devils: 13 GP, 7-5-1, 15 pts, fifth in Metropolitan Division
The Vancouver Canucks will look to halt their two-game losing streak when they travel to Newark to take on the New Jersey Devils in a Sunday afternoon matchup.
Despite the team's last-minute loss in Buffalo on Saturday, the game did have its bright spots. The Canucks' 37 shots were the second-highest output of the season and the best output since opening night, and Chris Higgins looked very good when he drove to the net to tie the game 2-2 midway through the third period.
Higgins told
Ben Kuzma of
The Province after the game that he's finding his groove as he returns from injury.
The first game in the preseason, everything is going a million miles an hour, and that’s kind of how I felt in my first (regular season) game. I felt more like myself, but a win would have been nice.
Higgins also talked about the advice he's offering to the Canucks rookie group, particularly Jared McCann:
“The easiest thing for a young guy is to get down down and press a little bit,” said Higgins. “I get McCann thinking about the next shift and not the one before because there’s always something you can do to influence the game on your next shift.
“It’s a tough (lesson) to learn because they (rookies) are not used to their mistakes being as amplified as they are in the NHL, so it’s a learning process for all of them and it will help them throughout the career.”
The Canucks announced on Sunday morning that Alex Biega has been recalled on an emergency basis from Utica. Vancouver was carrying just six defensemen on the road trip, so this probably means that one of the regulars was banged up on Saturday.
Update: the injured player is Chris Tanev.
Biega played for the Comets on Friday night but was scratched in their 5-1 win over Providence on Saturday in order to get back with the big club. The Canucks are taking full advantage of the short travel while they're out on the east coast. Maybe this is why they didn't want to join the rest of their division-mates in relocating their AHL franchise out to the west coast?
Speaking of Utica, Hunter Shinkaruk scored his second hat trick of the season on Saturday night and is now second in the AHL with nine goals. He trails only Frank Vatrano—an undrafted 21-year-old who came out of the University of Massachusetts at Lowell, scored 10 goals in his first 10 AHL games, then picked up his first NHL goal in his first game with the Boston Bruins on Saturday night.
Mark Scheig of
The Hockey Writers caught up with Jim Benning on Saturday night as he watched the OHL's Erie Otters host the Windsor Spitfires—after having visited Utica the night before and catching the Canucks on Saturday afternoon.
Though the writer got Shinkaruk's first name wrong (Antti??? There must have been a lot of background noise where they spoke), I'm interested to see Hunter's name now popping up first on Benning's list of Comets prospects:
“We’re starting to get depth now, with Jared (McCann) and Jake (Virtanen) and Ben Hutton, I was in Utica last night. We have Antti Shinkaruk, Brendan Gaunce, and Alex Grenier. I think we are getting to that point where we are starting to build up our prospect pool and so we want to continue to do that going forward.”
Shinkaruk may get his NHL opportunity before too much more time has passed.
As for the Devils, they're off to a pretty good start under new general manager Ray Shero and coach John Hynes. After finishing 25th overall last season, New Jersey currently sits on the playoff bubble at 16th overall. After an 0-3 start, the team is 7-2-1 in its last 10 games and is coming off a 4-2 win over Chicago on Thursday night.
So far this season, the Canucks have just one player in double-digit scoring—Daniel Sedin, with 11 points. The Devils have four—Mike Cammalleri leads the way with 12 points while Travis Zajac, Kyle Palmieri and Lee Stempniak have 10 points each.
Cory Schneider has played the last 10 games for the Devils but gets a day off on Sunday in favour of backup Keith Kinkaid.
As for New Jersey injuries, Patrik Elias and Tuomo Ruutu are sidelined while Ryan Clowe is staring down the possible end of his career due to concussion issues.
The Canucks and Devils split their season series last year, with each team winning at home.
Enjoy the game!
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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