As we come down from the collective high of that thrilling OT win for Canada on Thursday night, it's back to business in the NHL, and back to the eternal dumpster fire that is Canucks fandom. Taking on the Knights without Demko, Hughes and Pettersson seems less than ideal, but here we are.
Vancouver Canucks (26-18-11) vs. Toronto Maple Leafs (33-17-6)
7:00 pm PST; 10:00 pm EST
TV: Sportsnet, CBC, City TV
Radio: Sportsnet 650
Well that was one hell of a rush, eh?
And while I'm not so naive to think that the threat is gone, it was really nice to feel joy and get a reminder of how fucking lucky we are to be Canadian, if for but a few moments. But the harsh light of reality slowly has returned. We're back to remembering that Jordan Binnington is awful. We hate Connor McDavid again. And the Canucks are a bloody mess when it comes to staying healthy.
We'd already gotten the news that Thatcher Demko's day to day is now week to week, and we won't see him until sometime in March. Add in Quinn Hughes still not ready to go (which really makes you wonder what kind of shady shit Team USA was trying to pull, getting Hughes into the lineup when he's not actually good to go), and the news that C Elias Pettersson suffered an injury at the 4 Nations Face Off and the hits just keep on coming.
While we don't know exactly what the injury is, there was footage of Petey icing his knee during the tournament, so hopefully it's not something long term. EP40 will be a game time decision, but we should at least be prepared for this possibility. The bad part about this is not being at home, they don't have time to get someone in from Abbotsford in time for the game, as they don't have anyone else who could slot in to replace him and would have to be one player short taking on a tough Vegas squad who will have Mark Stone and Jack Eichel in the lineup tonight after both played in Thursday night's contest.
LINEUPS
Scrawled on the back of a crumpled betting slip from some dumbass that bet against Canada, we found today's potential lineups, but apparently it's also on nhl dot com too...
10 p.m. ET; SCRIPPS, CITY, SN, CBC
Canucks projected lineup
Jake DeBrusk -- Elias Pettersson -- Kiefer Sherwood
Drew O’Connor -- Filip Chytl -- Brock Boeser
Dakota Joshua -- Pius Suter -- Conor Garland
Nils Hoglander -- Teddy Blueger -- Nils Aman
Derek Forbort -- Filip Hronek
Marcus Pettersson -- Tyler Myers
Elias Nils Pettersson -- Carson Soucy
Kevin Lankinen
Arturs Silovs
Scratched: None
Injured: Thatcher Demko (lower body), Noah Juulsen (lower body), Quinn Hughes (upper body)
Golden Knights projected lineup
Ivan Barbashev -- Jack Eichel -- Victor Olofsson
Pavel Dorofeyev -- Tomas Hertl -- Raphael Lavoie
Brandon Saad -- Brett Howden -- Mark Stone
Tanner Pearson -- Nicolas Roy -- Keegan Kolesar
Nicolas Hague -- Alex Pietrangelo
Brayden McNabb – Kaedan Korczak
Noah Hanifin -- Zach Whitecloud
Adin Hill
Ilya Samsonov
Scratched: Ben Hutton
Injured: William Karlsson (lower body), Cole Schwindt (lower body), Shea Theodore (upper body)
While it would be preferable that the Knights gave Stone and Eichel a night off, they are still missing a couple noteworthy players in Karlsson and Theodore. This is a big test for the Canucks, who had been on a bit of a roll heading into the break, and coming off that big win over the Leafs in the last game, it's not beyond the realm of possibility they could very well pull this off tonight, but without Hughes for sure and probably Petey, that chance (and tomorrow night's tilt in Utah against the Utahs) is a little more unlikely.
GAME DAY CHATTER
GAME DAY BATTLE HYMN
Today's look at albums turning 40 this year brings us to AGENT STEEL and their debut 'Skeptics Apocalypse'. Part power metal, part speed metal, and part thrash, AGENT STEEL brought relentless speed on a release that holds up better than a lot of the releases from this year. Combining the super high pitched vocals of John Cyriis with a metric fuckton of catchy riffs, this album showed that fast and heavy could still be fun. Here's their best known track, Agents of Steel.
Enjoy the game, everyone. Go Canucks Go!
