After another strong performance from Nikita Tolopilo, the Canucks head to Los Angeles, hoping to the two losses yesterday afternoon behind them, after battling the Sharks and the officiating crew.

Vancouver Canucks (10-13-2) vs. Los Angeles Kings (11-6-7)

Crypto.com Arena, Los Angeles, CA

7:00 pm PST; 10:00 pm EST

TV: Sportsnet, CBC, CITY

Radio: Sportsnet 650

What are you supposed to do when games get called like that? When John Shorthouse politely mentions that the officiating crew is struggling during the broadcast, you know that's code for "What a complete fucking garbage fire!" The icing on the cake was Quinn Hughes getting an unsportsmanlike penalty for yelling at the referee over a missed call. Seriously. The only call that was worse, was at the end of the game, throwing Elias Pettersson in the box for *roughing (*getting crosschecked in the back three times), with less than two seconds left. Just an embarrassing display for the league and the game.

That led to a 5 on 3 power play for San Jose, and the tying goal. They'd later get another, and hang on to win 3-2. And that one hurts, because Quinn Hughes, as well as Tolopilo, deserved a far better fate than that. Hughes was an absolute dominant force all night, but sadly the Canucks couldn't get that tying goal and send it to overtime, which is a nice segue into tonight's game, as they take on the poster children for why the shootout needs to be eliminated and ties brought back, the Los Angeles Kings.

With seven Bettman points so far this season, and five of them coming from shootout losses, the Kings might not be as good as their place in the standings would suggest. But we aren't going to suggest that, because Uncle Gary parity never lies, friends.

There is good news, though, as Kevin Lankinen is good to go and will be getting the start tonight, as well as Jonathan Lekkerimaki getting recalled from Abbotsford. That means we're likely going to see some tweaks, and hopefully, some tweaks on the power play, which let them down yesterday.

LINEUPS

From the nhl dot coms, it's the thing:

Canucks projected lineup

Evander Kane -- Elias Pettersson -- Jake DeBrusk

Conor Garland -- David Kampf -- Brock Boeser

Drew O'Connor -- Max Sasson -- Kiefer Sherwood

Arshdeep Bains -- Lukas Reichel -- Linus Karlsson

Quinn Hughes -- Filip Hronek

Elias Pettersson -- Tyler Myers

Marcus Pettersson -- Tom Willander

Kevin Lankinen

Nikita Tolopilo

Scratched: P.O. Joseph, Jonathan Lekkerimaki, Aatu Raty

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

Kings projected lineup

Kevin Fiala -- Quinton Byfield -- Adrian Kempe

Alex Laferriere -- Anze Kopitar -- Trevor Moore

Joel Armia -- Phillip Danault -- Andrei Kuzmenko

Jeff Malott -- Alex Turcotte -- Corey Perry

Mikey Anderson -- Joel Edmundson

Brian Dumoulin -- Brandt Clarke

Jacob Moverare -- Cody Ceci

Anton Forsberg

Darcy Kuemper

Scratched: Samuel Helenius

Injured: Drew Doughty (lower body), Warren Foegele (upper body)

So, Sasson gets bumped to the third line, as Raty sits, and Reichel slots in on the fourth line. No other changes for the moment. They've got one more game on this road swing as they head up to Colorado Tuesday before heading home and a Friday/Saturday double header against Utah and Minnesota, so that two day break might allow for some of the injured players who've been skating with the team to potentially return, but we'll see how that plays out.

GAME DAY CHATTER

Sorry, we really need to watch this one again.

GAME DAY BATTLE HYMN

Off their latest album called '...Is Your Friend', here's SoCal HC crew DRAIN, showing 'Nothing But Love'.

Enjoy the game, everyone. Fuck Fascism! Go Canucks Go!