Given the travel, the time frame, and the status of the Canucks and all of their injuries, coming out of that road trip with three of a possible six points feels like a win. And while they seemed to have ignited their offence, they've got to get better goaltending, or the teams ahead of them in the West are going to stay that way.

Vancouver Canucks (9-10-2) vs. Dallas Stars (12-5-3)

Rogers Arena, Vancouver, BC

7:00 pm PST; 10:00 pm EST

TV: Sportsnet Pacific

Radio: Sportsnet 650

There are definitely positives to take out of that road swing out east, in spite of how Monday night went. First and foremost, the play of Quinn Hughes and Elias Pettersson is encouraging, to say the least. Hughes racked up 8 assists in three games (and remember, he missed the game in Carolina), which earned him third star of the week honours from the NHL. Pettersson meanwhile has been consistently putting up points, his scoring touch is coming back, and he's been killing it in the faceoff dot.

They've also got the power play producing, and getting scoring from guys up and down the lineup. In their last 5 games, they have 21 goals, and usually, that should get you more than one win in that stretch, right? It should, if you have goaltending and defence better than the Canucks, and that could be what sinks them this season, along with an awful penalty kill.

Add in that they have to take on the Dallas Stars without Thatcher Demko, who has been phenomenal against the Stars in his career, and this doesn't appear to be getting better, at least tonight. Dallas look very much ready to take another run at things, and appear to have all the pieces. The thought of how badly their power play, currently cruising along at a success rate of just under 32%, is going to abuse the NHL's worst penalty kill tonight is making my stomach rumble. And if we can't get Kevin Lankinen to stand on his head, this is going to be a long night.

It's not that the Canucks aren't putting in the effort. The actual number of times where it felt like they weren't competing as hard as they could is almost non-existent. The work effort is definitely there, it's just they're not very good, and the injuries to key players have compounded that problem.

LINEUPS

We found this on the NHL dot com thang...

Stars projected lineup

Sam Steel -- Wyatt Johnston -- Mikko Rantanen

Jason Robertson -- Roope Hintz -- Tyler Seguin

Oskar Back -- Justin Hyrckowian -- Maverick Bourque

Jamie Benn -- Radek Faksa -- Colin Blackwell

Esa Lindell -- Miro Heiskanen

Lian Bichsel -- Alexander Petrovic

Vladislav Kolyachonok -- Kyle Capobianco

Jake Oettinger

Casey DeSmith

Scratched: Nathan Bastian

Injured: Adam Erne (lower body), Matt Duchene (upper body), Nils Lundkvist (lower body), Ilya Lyubushkin (undisclosed)

Canucks projected lineup

Evander Kane -- Elias Pettersson -- Kiefer Sherwood

Brock Boeser -- David Kampf -- Conor Garland

Jake DeBrusk -- Aatu Raty -- Drew O'Connor

Mackenzie MacEachern -- Max Sasson -- Linus Karlsson

Quinn Hughes -- Filip Hronek

Marcus Pettersson -- Tyler Myers

Elias Pettersson -- Tom Willander

Kevin Lankinen

Jiri Patera

Scratched: Arshdeep Bains, P.O Joseph, Lukas Reichel

Injured: Thatcher Demko (lower body), Filip Chytil (concussion protocol), Teddy Blueger (lower body), Nils Hoglander (lower body), Derek Forbort (undisclosed)

I have to say, Lukas Reichel being a healthy scratch is not a good look. I know the expectations for him were low, but man, he simply is not playing at an NHL level right now. I know Elias Pettersson has been playing well, as has Conor Garland, but I wonder how much longer Evander Kane will be tied to those two. They seem to be performing well in spite of him, and his actual impact on their performance is minimal at best.

GAME DAY CHATTER

GAME DAY BATTLE HYMN

With today being Trans Remembrance Day, it felt fitting to offer up the latest from a band that is leading the fight against the bastards trying to erase trans people from existence. TRANSGRESSIVE are led by Alicia Cordisco, and their latest EP 'Not Like This' is a politically charged riff fest that puts TRANSGRESSIVE among the leaders in the aggressive thrash scene. Check them out on Bandcamp, and here's the opening track off that new EP, "All We Are Is All We Have". Trans rights are human rights.

Enjoy the game. Fuck fascists. Go Canucks Go!