On Sunday the Vancouver Canucks get another shot at the Winnipeg Jets, a team the BC boys lost two twice in the month of December.
On December 29th, Mark Scheifele notched a hat trick in Winnipeg as the home team prevailed 4-2. The Canucks scored first and held a 1-0 lead after the first period.
On December 17th at Rogers Arena the Jets glided through the Canucks 5-1. Winnipeg built a five-nothing lead and were cruising through the 3rd period when Bo Horvat scored his 22nd goal of the season with less than six minutes to play on the power play to ruin goalie Connor Hellebuyck’s shut-out bid.
Fast forward to Sunday’s matinee (12-noon pacific time) in Winnipeg, Vancouver comes off a solid 4-2 home win against Nathan MacKinnon and the Colorado Avalanche.
“Hopefully that spurs something on,” Canucks head coach Bruce Boudreau said after the win. “It was just a good effort by everybody, you can’t fault anybody, they played their butts off and we had a win.”
The win snapped a three game skid.
Canucks Stuff the Box?
Each NHL team will have at least one player representative at the NHL All-Star Game in south Florida in early February. The league announced its eight selections from each division this past week and will allow the fans to vote for the remainder of the roster, although that gesture is sometimes more symbolic than real. The league will step in these days if someone ridiculous receives a majority of votes or if someone very obvious is overlooked.
NHL hockey operations chose team leading scorer Elias Pettersson to represent the Vancouver Canucks, which likely means the league’s fifth leading goal scorer Bo Horvat will be left out. Although he’s somewhat deserving based on his 28 tallies this season, it’s hard to imagine two representatives from a sixth place club on the roster with only three more spots available in each division.
‘Petey’ leads the Canucks with 46 points to Horvat’s 43 and has been the club’s most exciting and effective two-way player this season. Pettersson is also the most skilled as an individual and his dangle fits in perfectly with the 3-on-3 All-Star Game playing format. It’ll be his 3rd All-Star appearance.
Enjoy the Hockey Action !!
