Canucks Game Preview

Game Day: Canucks vs Wings

For all the bitching and moaning about Ryan Miller, I'm not sure who should be apologizing to him more, the fan base or his teammates. Coughing up another game to those jerks with such a poor effort late in the game, hanging Miller out to dry again is getting old. And oh good, it's another team the Canucks have made a habit of doing this with in to face them tonight...

By Kent Basky Jan 3, 2015, 2:24pm PST

Time	Saturday 7:00 PM PST	TV	CBC
Season Series	1-0 Red Wings	Last Meeting	5-3 Red Wings Nov 30/14
The Enemy	Winging It In Motown	Scoring Leaders	D. Sedin: 8-24-32 H. Zetterburg 9-24-33

Canucks	CATEGORY	Red Wings
21-12-3	SEASON RECORD	20-9-9
45	Points	49
6th	Conference Position	5th
Lost 1	Streak	Won 1
2.86 (9)	Goals For Per 60 (GF60)	2.82 (12)
2.67 (19)	Goals Against Per 60 (GA60)	2.32 (5)
20.0 (10)	Power Play %	23.6 (3)
86.9 (4)	Penalty Kill %	88.0 (2)
48.3 (22)	Faceoff Win %	55.1 (1)
10.5 (19)	PIM / GP	8.3 (5)
49.2 (21)	Corsi For %	53.2 (4)
100.3 (13)	PDO	100.7 (10)

There's only a couple things you really need to know about tonight's game. First, Tom Sestito's been put on waivers and like most Canucks fans, I took the sobering news hard.

So now that he's off to go play out his time in the NHL before joining the Tea Party and run for Congress, we can celebrate some other good news, because Zack is back! Zack Kassian's been cleared to play, and they're sitting Linden Vey to get him back in the lineup. There's a lot of people who think Zack has been a disappointment, but it's hard to call someone a disappointment when you've not given them a fair crack in the first place. Here's the bottom line: The Canucks had just 4 regulation losses with him in the lineup, and have had 8 during his absence. They're a better team with him there, and once he gets back up to speed, perhaps we can see the Canucks follow suit.

The Canucks will need to rely on their penalty killing tonight, facing a deadly Wings PP tonight. The major focus has to be 5 on 5 play though. The top lines need to provide some support for Ryan Miller, who's been really damn good over the past couple weeks. He's given the Canucks chances to win, and they're failing him.

GAME DAY BATTLE HYMN

Forget all the flannel-clad poseurs and dead rock stars: this is the best thing outta the Pacific Northwest: Toxic Holocaust with Lord Of The Wasteland!