This Isn't The Last Song There's No Violin: Canucks @ Coyotes

There's got to be a silver lining here, right? Injuries to the captain, starting goalie (pick one, doesn't matter), Hamhuis, Tanev and honey f'ing badger Hansen and now comes the double whammy of Edler hitting the ER along with their "foundational" pivot for the second time this season.

From ManGamesLost, check it:

Vancouver isn't in Oilers or Sabres land yet, but the bigger issue is the size of the bubble. As the graph notes, it correlates to IIT, or how they define the injury impact to team (definition here). As of three days ago Vancouver has the fourth worst IIT for skaters and - to completely piss off the anti-stats folks - their IIT-cfrel (injury impact to the team's relative Corsi) is also the fourth worst. Consider Vancouver's position relative to the top left of the graph and...yeah.

This team needs to start giving souls away to Satan or find a voodoo doctor.

Back to that elusive silver lining. They kept the Avs in check while the Preds lost to Washington. The Wild continue their depressing play and are two up on Vancouver. Last night's win ties them with their opponent tonight, who are 2-6-2 in their last ten. And, oh hey, it didn't take the OT either. If they can walk out of Arizona with two points, they'll be knocking on the Wild Card door and be three back of Anaheim to boot.

One more shot at positivity: since Sutter is turning into Sami Salo 2.0, it'll likely get McCann back in who has quietly been a force on offense when he manages to crack the top 12 oh never mind. With the kid line rolling, Etem/Vey on the checking line, presumably Alex Biega in for Edler and Markstrom playing SOME OTHER TIME it gives this old dog a big smile.

If this team deserves a sniff at the playoffs, let the kids drive the bus. Clap clap, clap-clap-clap.

Human Guinea Pig Formations

Daniel Sedin - Henrik Sedin - Jannik Hansen

Sven Baertschi - Bo Horvat - Jake Virtanen

Alexandre Burrows - Linden Vey - Emerson Etem

Derek Dorsett - Adam Cracknell - Radim Vrbata

Dan Hamhuis - Chris Tanev

Ben Hutton - Luca Sbisa

Alex Biega - Matt Bartkowski

Ryan Miller

Tobias Rieder - Antoine Vermette - Mikkel Boedker

Max Domi - Martin Hanzal - Anthony Duclair

Jordan Martinook - Brad Richardson - Shane Doan

Kyle Chipchura - Tyler Gaudet - Viktor Tikhonov

Oliver Ekman-Larsson - Connor Murphy

Jarred Tinordi - Zbynek Michalek

Kevin Connauton - Michael Stone

Louis Domingue

Three Questions

1. Can Ryan Miller pick up where Markstrom's strong effort left off last night?

2. Will Mommy Dorsett start a fight with a Coyote mother three minutes in and lose?

3. If you cut Horvat, does he bleed or does pure, beautiful light burst through the skin?

Fearless Prediction

The reverse jinx worked last night. Hell it worked so well Sbisa did that thing we'll talk about until training camp. So let's play the note again Sam: Arizona wins 3-1. All is lost. Head for the hills.

GCG Go necessary evils go!