With another extra time win, the Canucks return home after pulling in 4 of a possible six points. They kick off a four game home stand with a visit from Connor Bedard and the Blackhawks, who appear to be falling back to earth after a solid start to the season.

Vancouver Canucks (7-7-0) vs. Nashville Predators (5-5-3)

Rogers Arena, Vancouver, BC

7:00 pm PST; 10:00 pm EST

TV: Sportsnet Pacific

Radio: Sportsnet 650

After the way the Canucks lost their last visit to Nashville, you knew they'd come out with a little more fire, and for most of that game, they looked... dominant? They certainly controlled a lot of the play, in a way we haven't seen much this season. And they likely would have escaped that one in regulation, if the officials hadn't gotten so involved in the outcome.

Serving up a power play to Nashville on a phantom high stick by Evander Kane, the Preds were able to take advantage of the floundering Canucks PK to tie the game with less than four minutes remaining. Sure, the Canucks should have killed off the penalty, but the call is just so obviously a complete embellishment by Luke Evangelista, that we'd probably still be pissed off about it. I mean, I am loathe to give Evander Kane any credit, as he's taken a number of penalties this season which have led to goals and losses, but c'mon, man. That is not a high stick, and the fact that Evangelista was not fined by the league since then for embellishment, just shows you how little they care about it.

Thankfully, some things are evergreen, like Brock Boeser owning the Nashville Predators. Juuse Saros must see that flow in his nightmares, as once again, Boeser crushed the souls of the Preds and their fans with a last second dagger, and it was a beauty. Fantastic work by him and Elias Pettersson to get that done with just 10 seconds left in the OT, moving their record back to .500 and their OT/SO record to 4-0.

Tonight, though... it's a trap. The Chicago Blackhawks got off to a bad start buy losing five straight to start the season. After a stretch where they won 4 of 5 including victories over Utah, Anaheim and Tampa, they've since lost 3 straight and 4 of their last 5. So desperate for a win, after dropping road games in Winnipeg, Edmonton and Seattle with just one point to show for it, they will be trying to bump that slump against a Canucks team that's still banged up and has a lot of travel miles on them already. Another thing that worries me? The Canucks record against the Hawks of late. They've won 10 straight against Chicago, and it just screams like it's gonna be one of those nights where the Canucks let one slip out of their grasp.

The problem the Hawks have is after a couple players not named Bedard, no one else is scoring. And getting some good goaltending from Spencer Knight so far this season might keep them in this, but it's similar to the issues the Canucks face: If they don't get a number of people going, this season's gonna be another disappointment.

LINEUPS

Here's what we found on the nhl dot com thingy:

Blackhawks projected lineup

Ryan Greene -- Connor Bedard -- Andre Burakovsky

Teuvo Teravainen -- Frank Nazar -- Tyler Bertuzzi

Ryan Donato -- Colton Dach -- Ilya Mikheyev

Oliver Moore -- Nick Foligno

Alex Vlasic -- Sam Rinzel

Matt Grzelcyk -- Connor Murphy

Wyatt Kaiser -- Artyom Levshunov

Louis Crevier

Spencer Knight

Arvid Soderblom

Scratched: Sam Lafferty

Injured: Laurent Brossoit (hip), Jason Dickinson (upper body)

Canucks projected lineup

Evander Kane -- Elias Pettersson -- Conor Garland

Jake DeBrusk -- Lukas Reichel -- Brock Boeser

Drew O'Connor -- Aatu Raty -- Kiefer Sherwood

Arshdeep Bains -- Max Sasson -- Linus Karlsson

Quinn Hughes -- Tyler Myers

Marcus Pettersson -- Filip Hronek

Elias Nils Pettersson -- Tom Willander

Kevin Lankinen

Thatcher Demko

Scratched: P.O. Joseph, Mackenzie MacEachern

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

The big news tonight is that Conor Garland will return to the lineup after sitting out the entire road trip for the Canucks. Teddy Blueger is returning to practice, and Jonathan Lekkerimaki isn't far behind. With Jason Dickinson out of the lineup for the Hawks, the addressing of his chickenshit hit from behind will have to wait til the next time these teams meet, but given Tyler Bertuzzi's histrionics after the loss a few weeks ago, I wouldn't be surprised for him to be cranking the idiot dial to '11' tonight.

GAME DAY CHATTER

GAME DAY BATTLE HYMN

Well, with ol' DICK Cheney shufflin' off this mortal coil to take up residence in eternal damnation, I thought it was fitting to bring out this MINISTRY classic from back when he was forever making the world an angrier, more dangerous place. Rot in hell, you bastard.

Enjoy the game, folks. Fuck fascism! Go Canucks Go!