Game Preview / Gamethread #15: Canucks @ Canadiens.

November 12, 2023

Game Coverage, GAME PREVIEW, GAME THREAD

- Kent Basky

The Eastern Canadian road swing moves on to Montreal after a disappointing night in Toronto. This is not a bad thing, nor cause for alarm. Regression was going to happen, but it's not going to be nearly as bad as some might think. What matters is how they respond to a game where they were clearly not the better team last night.

CANUCKS (10-3-1) at CANADIENS (7-5-2)

4:00PM PST Bell Centre, Montreal, PQ

Sportsnet Pacific, TSN 2

Losing to that team sucks. No easier way to put it. What sucks worse is that the Canucks somehow got away from doing all the little things that have been the source of their success so far this season. They looked checked out, and while I don't think it's indicative of any kind of trend, it's frustrating that this was the night that the team's best players decided to shit the bed.

Of course, all of that can be forgotten with a win tonight as they head to Montreal, but to do that, we need them to show up. It's not as though Toronto forced them to play horrible, and if anything, they looked like the tired team, not the Leafs. So getting some fresh legs in the form of Teddy Blueger in the lineup tonight will definitely help.

The Habs are going to be in the mix all season, and if they can overcome their goaltending deficiencies, they should be able to make a return to the postseason come April. And with them coming off an emotional OT win over Boston last night, with the Canucks eager to make amends for taking a night off, and the potential for an emotional let down game from their opponents, this could see them back on track to head home for that big game against the Islanders later in the week.

I want to stress that last night wasn't all bad. The Canucks did a fantastic job of making sure Toronto's best players (apart from Nylander) weren't a factor, and let's be honest, Toronto got a ton of bounces, especially on Nylander's second goal, which wasn't going in until Tyler Myers tried to "help". Add in an uncharacteristically bad night from Thatcher Demko as well as the worst performance this season from the pairing of Quinn highes and Filip Hronek and that's your game.

The Canucks have been decent at rebounding from losses this year, and it's silly to think this is anything more than an off night. Sure, this is their third in four nights, but it's a good test, and with the accountability and level of professionalism this team has shown so far this season, you should feel confident heading into this one.

LINEUPS

The following potential lineup for tonight was written in both official languages on the back of an ad for some black market poutine... no, wait. It was nhl dot com.

Canucks projected lineup

Phillip Di Giuseppe -- J.T. Miller -- Brock Boeser

Ilya Mikheyev -- Elias Pettersson -- Andrei Kuzmenko

Dakota Joshua -- Pius Suter -- Conor Garland

Sam Lafferty -- Teddy Blueger -- Anthony Beauvillier

Quinn Hughes -- Filip Hronek

Ian Cole -- Mark Friedman

Carson Soucy -- Tyler Myers

Casey DeSmith

Thatcher Demko

Scratched: Nils Hoglander, Jack Studnicka, Noah Juulsen

Injured: Guillaume Brisebois (lower body), Tucker Poolman (head)

Canadiens projected lineup

Alex Newhook -- Nick Suzuki --Josh Anderson

Juraj Slafkovsky -- Christian Dvorak -- Cole Caufield

Tanner Pearson -- Sean Monahan -- Brendan Gallagher

Michael Pezzetta -- Jake Evans -- Rafael Harvey-Pinard

Mike Matheson -- Justin Barron

Kaiden Guhle -- Johnathan Kovacevic

Arber Xhekaj -- Jordan Harris

Jake Allen

Sam Montembeault

Scratched: Jesse Ylonen, Joel Armia, Cayden Primeau

Injured: David Savard (hand)

As expected, Blueger is in and Nils Hoglander is out. No other changes as the Canucks are thankfully still mostly healthy. It'll be DeSmith versus Jake Allen tonight as Sam Montembault was in the crease last night for Montreal's 3-2 OT win over the Bruins.

GAME DAY CHATTER

“The one thing about this group, if there’s something that slips and they recognize it, usually the next game, they play pretty well in that category.”

🗣 Head Coach Rick Tocchet on looking at his team to bounce back today in Montreal.@theprovince | #Canucks pic.twitter.com/rult4BQkvn
— Vancouver Canucks (@Canucks) November 12, 2023

"Last few games, there's pockets of the game that teams are outworking us. We've got to play desperate hockey too. We have to match the level of the opponent."

🗣 Head Coach Rick Tocchet's postgame media availability.@theprovince | #Canucks pic.twitter.com/iozqrIFgtX
— Vancouver Canucks (@Canucks) November 12, 2023

points are still there, underlying profile is solid & team is 10-3-1, but #Canucks Kuzmenko has just 3 goals on the season and his lone goal in last 9 games was the 6-0 goal in that 10-1 win in San Jose. Where are you with Kuzmenko’s play?
— Jeff Paterson (@patersonjeff) November 12, 2023

Elias Pettersson turns 25 years old today.

Per @SNstats, he is 3rd in #Canucks history in points before his 25th birthday with 348.

Only Tony Tanti (389) and Trevor Linden (419) had more.
— Brendan Batchelor (@BatchHockey) November 12, 2023

Oh, so small sample sizes don’t matter until the team you’ve been saying will regress loses one game, so you can use it to validate what you’ve been preaching for more than a month while only looking at spreadsheets and not watching games?

Ok, good. Just thought I’d clarify.
— Brendan Batchelor (@BatchHockey) November 12, 2023

GAME DAY BATTLE HYMN

I tested positive for COVID 35 days ago, and I'm still not feeling better. That means I have a lot of free time on my hands. Which means I find weird shit like this. This is VALKYRIE ZERO, from Japan. The song is called 'Frogs Of The Round. What the hell does that even mean? What I do is this song f'n rips. You're welcome.

Enjoy the game. Go Canucks Go!

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