Speak Of The Devil And He Shall Appear: Leafs @ Canucks

Vancouver will try the old skate-in-rink approach in an attempt to win their third consecutive game tonight. They have yet to win three in a row this season, but high on their successful road trip and playing at home against the worst team in the league, they got a sho...wait, this sounds familiar.

Oh yeah.

Well so what? That was eons ago. Vancouver is 7-0 against the Leafs at home in their past seven meetings with a nifty 4.1 goals per game and only 1.4 against. If this Canucks team can muster four goals at home I'll eat at Subway again.

Just ignore the last time these teams met was in November the Canucks phoned in a 4-2 loss, allowing Roberto Luongo trade meatbag Shawn Matthias to score the game winner. But Matthias is injured - with whiplash! - so all good now.

Glancing at the schedule Toronto is one of the six games Vancouver has left to play against an opponent with fewer points, and most of those are a mix of playing similarly-underachieving Canadian teams (I'm looking at you Calgary). March is going to be brutal; Vancouver hasn't even played the Sharks yet this season. So tonight is one of those rare gimmes.

They need to win this. If the chips fall their way around the league, Vancouver could leapfrog Minnesota and Arizona and be one point out of the wild card and two behind Anaheim.

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 Jared McCann - Radim Vrbata

Dan Hamhuis - Chris Tanev

Ben Hutton - Luca Sbisa

Alex Biega - Matt Bartkowski

Ryan Miller

Michael Grabner - Peter Holland - Leo Komarov

Colin Greening - Mark Arcobello - P.A. Parenteau

Daniel Winnik - Nick Spaling - Brad Boyes

Richard Clune - Byron Froese - Josh Leivo

Matt Hunwick - Morgan Rielly

Jake Gardiner - Roman Polak

Martin Marincin - Frank Corrado

Jonathan Bernier

Oh Frankie. It still stings over here too.

Two Questions

1. The Canucks haven't scored more than three goals in a game since December. In their last three games, the Leafs have given up six to the Senators, four to Calgary and five to Edmonton. So which streak ends?

2. Look above at Toronto's defense. Which one of those poor souls is going to stop Sedinery from putting on a clinic?

Fearless Prediction

I'm riding this hot streak of betting against the good guys.

The sky falls. The Cascadia Subduction zone swallows the entire Northwest. But not before Richard Clune scores ten goals, one of which goes off the face of a little girl holding a puppy in one hand and a giant lollipop in the other.

There, properly jinxed. Now get the win.

GCG Go necessary evils go!