Canucks Game Facts
Tonight: Vancouver Canucks at San Jose Sharks
Where: SAP Center
When: 7 pm pacific
TV/Radio: Sportsnet, HNIC / AM-650
Key Factors:
Starting goalkeepers: Casey DeSmith for Vancouver, Kaapo Kahkonen for San Jose.
The Canucks beat the Kraken last night in Seattle 5-1 to end a little skid that saw them lose three of the previous four games.
We brought up depth scoring heading into the Seattle match and the Canucks answered in spades. Teddy Blueger, Dakota Joshua, Sam Lafferty and Nils Höglander all lit the lamp. That’s seven goals on the season for “Hoagie”.
Nils Åman was called up, signed a new two-year deal with the Canucks, and tallied two assists vs the Kraken.
Vancouver remains without long-term injured 4th-liner Pius Suter and defenceman Carson Soucy.
Is this a classic ‘trap’ game, with the Canucks playing the night before and then travelling down to Cali’? Probably not, because although they didn’t travel, the Sharks played last night as well and are awful.
Add the fact that San Jose is missing six regulars to injury, four of them on injured reserve. One of them is Logan Couture, their best player and captain.
Who’s Hot? And Not …
Vancouver’s top scorers have cooled off a bit. Centre Elias Pettersson is now seven points behind league leader Nikita Kucherov of the Tampa Bay Lightning. “Petey” has gone pointless in his last three games and had a goal and an assist over the two games prior to that.
D-man and Canucks captain Quinn Hughes has 32, just three behind “Kooch”, after picking up an assist last night. J.T. Miller has almost kept pace with the top of the NHL with 30 points.
Anthony Beauvillier has been snake-bit in general while Brock Boeser has cooled off with one point over his last five games.
There’s not much to say about the Sharks offensively. Their leading scorer is Tomas Hertl with 14 points. William Eklund is next with 8.
Simply put, Hughes has more points than the top three Sharks scorers combined.
Special Teams
The Canucks power play went 0-for-2 on Friday in Seattle and hasn’t scored in its last three games. Overall, the success rate is a sterling 29%.
San Jose on the man advantage finds success just 17.5% of the time.
The Vancouver penalty kill is a sub-standard 77.9% while the Sharks are third worst in the NHL at 73.2%.
Coming In:
Canucks: 14-6-and-1 for 29 points, good for 2nd place in the Pacific Division. Vancouver beat the Kraken 5-1 in Seattle on Friday night.
Sharks: 3-15-and-2 for 8 points, dead last in the NHL. San Jose lost at home in a shoot-out Friday night to the Montreal Canadiens.
High Traffic Entry:
— The Hugeness Of The Canucks Bo Horvat Trade
— The latest “Gabby” pod …
