The fun homestand is over. Canucks are now back on the cold dark road into the cold dark east.
So dark, the Nucks have to play a NHL hockey game only a couple hours after sunrise. Do we blame the NHL schedulers who get up at 5AM EST to plot the horrible Nucking timeline? Sure.
We could also blame the NHL who allowed all those southern teams into the league. Imagine if the league reverted to the original six - but with only Canadian teams. Nucks would have won multiple Cups by now. We wouldn't have to get up early, rush brunch and watch another 52 games to find out if this is our year.
Since we're still dreaming... wouldn't it be nice if the Nucks could extend their win streak to 5, while playing on the road in near peewee time?
Their opponent this morning is the Minni Wild, who the Nucks defeated soundly in the ROG not even 10 days ago. The Wild have a bit of a win streak going - but not as big - and their new coach bump has already worn off.
Ours is just getting going. The Taco Tough bump was working great at home, we will see if they can take the Taco Tough bump to wins on the bumpy road of the east or mid-east... or mid-west as they call it in the east of NHL HQ.
Ilya Mikheyev -- Elias Pettersson -- Sam Lafferty
Nils Hoglander -- J.T. Miller -- Brock Boeser
Dakota Joshua -- Teddy Blueger -- Conor Garland
Andrei Kuzmenko -- Pius Suter -- Phillip Di Giuseppe
Quinn Hughes -- Filip Hronek
Nikita Zadorov -- Tyler Myers
Ian Cole -- Noah Juulsen
Thatcher Demko
Casey DeSmith
Scratched: Mark Friedman, Nils Aman
Injured: Carson Soucy (foot), Guillaume Brisebois (concussion)
Kirill Kaprizov -- Joel Eriksson Ek -- Matthew Boldy
Marcus Johansson -- Marco Rossi -- Mats Zucarello
Marcus Foligno -- Frederick Gaudreau -- Pat Maroon
Brandon Duhaime -- Connor Dewar -- Ryan Hartman
Jake Middleton -- Brock Faber
Alex Goligoski -- Dakota Mermis
Zach Bogosian -- Daemon Hunt
Filip Gustavsson
Marc-Andre Fleury
Scratched: Vinni Lettieri, Jon Merrill
Injured: Jonas Brodin (upper body), Jared Spurgeon (lower body)
Status report
Demko made 36 saves in a 4-0 win against the Florida Panthers on Thursday. … Spurgeon will be a game-time decision; the defenseman skated on his own but did not practice with the Wild on Friday. … Gustavsson made 35 saves in a 3-2 shootout win agains the Calgary Flames on Thursday. - NHL.com
It's been an exciting week to be a Nucks fan. Solid Tough Taco play by the team - and wins! The sucky Lu contract is recaptured and pasted on the ring in the ROG. Great to see Lu on Saturday, but fear he has suffered incurable Floride poisoning with so many years of SoBeach sand stuck in his pads.
This morning we find out if our Vancouver espresso shots will result in sufficient Nucking goals to get the 1st road win on this tour of inane NHL scheduling.
Game Day Battle Hymn
Nucks are visiting a city inhabited by many Nordic descendants. What better way to lull the locals to a slow start than some Nordic folk tunes performed by some talented and beautiful players of the VSO. Pretty sure Kent has many better, much louder ways. But at least it's not Westy's Teshers...
GO COCONUTS!
