It was almost predictable that someone was going to get hurt on Thursday night in St Louis, but 33 seconds into the game? And with Brock Boeser the latest casualty, things looked pretty grim for the Canucks, but it appears someone forget to tell that to Kiefer Sherwood.

Vancouver Canucks (6-6-0) vs. Minnesota Wild (3-6-1)

Grand Casino Arena, St Paul, MN

4:00 pm PST; 7:00 pm EST

TV: Sportsnet 360

Radio: Sportsnet 650

The odds were already against the Canucks heading into this one, and when Brock Boeser was felled by a friendly fire point shot just 33 seconds in, you could hardly blame any Canucks fan for walking away at that point. I mean, looking at their injury list, and one of the guys actually producing goes down?

It then became crucial for two things to happen if they hoped to escape from Missouri with two points: Someone needed to step up and score some goals, and Kevin Lankinen would have to put in his best performance of the season so far. And with the team missing some of their most potent offensive weapons, Lankinen did exactly that, making 36 saves along with three in the shootout to help the Canucks to a win on the strength of an inspirational Kiefer Sherwood hat trick.

And there was almost another much needed bit of good news, as it appeared that Evander Kane had actually come through with a big goal when it was needed, as he scored with less than four minutes to go in the third. But, in keeping with the way he's performed this season, the goal was waved off, taken down on a sopping wet tissue soft as the goalie it was scored on a goaltender interference call against Mackenzie MacEachern. To say the contact made affected Binnington's ability to stop that puck is simply laughable. All these years and the league still has no bloody idea what goaltender interference is.

Anyway, after Sherwood rang his shootout attempt off the crossbar, and Brayden Schenn lost the puck on his attempt on Lankinen, Jake DeBrusk ended it and gave the Canucks a much needed victory to even their record for the month of October at 6-6-0. They move on to Minnesota to take on one of the NHL's surprise teams after the first month, and not in a good way.

Many had the Wild pegged as legit contenders for the ultra tough Central division this year, but they've struggled out of the gate, thanks to some surprisingly poor goaltending from Filip Gustavsson, and the NHL's worst penalty killing, which neutralizes their lethal power play. They're scoring at the same pace as the Canucks, but letting almost a whole goal more per game so far, and that's not a recipe for success. They have some outstanding offensive talent, but if Gustavsson can't get it figured out and quick, the teams ahead of them in the race for Western Conference playoff spots are gonna leave them in the dust.

The Canucks are going to have to come up with a better penalty killing effort than we saw Thursday night, as the Wild are one of the NHL's best on the power play. Kirill Kaprizov has scored 8 of his 16 points so far this season on the man advantage, and after going one for three against St Louis, another night of sub par penalty killing could sink them.

LINEUPS

From that nhl dot com thingy, here's what they think is gonna happen roster wise this evening:

Canucks projected lineup

Jake DeBrusk -- Elias Pettersson -- Brock Boeser

Evander Kane -- Lukas Reichel -- Kiefer Sherwood

Drew O'Connor -- Aatu Raty -- Mackenzie MacEachern

Arshdeep Bains -- Max Sasson -- Linus Karlsson

Marcus Pettersson -- Filip Hronek

Elias Pettersson -- Tom Willander

P.O Joseph -- Tyler Myers

Thatcher Demko

Kevin Lankinen

Scratched: Kirill Kudryavtsev

Injured: Conor Garland (undisclosed), Victor Mancini (undisclosed), Quinn Hughes (lower body), Filip Chytil (concussion protocol), Jonathan Lekkerimaki (upper body), Teddy Blueger (lower body), Nils Hoglander (lower body), Derek Forbort (undisclosed)

Wild projected lineup

Kirill Kaprizov -- Marco Rossi -- Marcus Johansson

Vladimir Tarasenko -- Joel Eriksson Ek -- Matt Boldy

Marcus Foligno -- Ryan Hartman -- Vinnie Hinostroza

Yakov Trenin -- Ben Jones -- Tyler Pitlick

Jonas Brodin -- Brock Faber

Jake Middleton -- Jared Spurgeon

Zeev Buium -- David Jiricek

Filip Gustavsson

Jesper Wallstedt

Scratched: Daemon Hunt, Danila Yurov

Injured: Mats Zuccarello (lower body), Nico Sturm (back), Zach Bogosian (lower body)

Boeser is going to be good to go for tonight, and it will be Thatcher Demko back in the crease tonight for the Canucks. That shootout win for Lankinen, his second skills competition victory of the season, has moved him into the top spot for shootout save percentage in NHL history. He's stopped 38 of 44 attempts for an .864%, while the next active goalie on the list? Thatcher Demko (43 of 53- .811%)

GAME DAY CHATTER

GAME DAY BATTLE HYMN

We're goin' local today, as UNLEASH THE ARCHERS dropped a Halloween treat for us yesterday, with a killer cover of the TYPE O NEGATIVE classic 'Black No. 1'. Fantastic job on this one, breathing new life into a Halloween metal classic!

And just so you know, we're totally going to forgive you if you watch the Blue Jays game tonight, as they try and make history and win the World Series for the first time in 32 years. I mean, I am probably gonna go with the winner take all Game 7 baseball game over the Canucks and Wild.

So...

Enjoy the game(s). Fuck fascism. Go Canucks Go! Okay, Blue Jays! Let's Play Ball!