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[Ed Note: Kent is still being battered by the flu, so consider this your pregame piece too. Submit those score predictions at will]
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Seven games left. You can almost taste the freedom.
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No one every said tanking would be pretty. For the opponent, the next two games represent a chance to climb into a tie with Anaheim and one point back from Pacific-leading Los Angeles. For Vancouver it means...who knows? Respectability perhaps but that feels intensely hollow.
San Jose also hasn't lost in Vancouver in their last nine attempts, which includes the first round playoff sweep in 2013. So the safe money is on the Canucks reaching nine straight losses by the end of the evening. If so, and they also can't win on Thursday, they'll tie their franchise-worst 10-game losing streak from 1997.
If the stars align like that, it'll open the door to create an entirely new deplorable losing record streak directly in front of Kesler (*spits*) and Anaheim on - appropriately enough - April 1st.
But, hey, what good is this dumpster fire of a season if they don't cement a few new records in the process?
Projected Human Guinea Pig Formations
Daniel Sedin - Henrik Sedin - Jannik Hansen
Sven Baertschi - Bo Horvat - Jake Virtanen
Alexandre Burrows - Markus Granlund - Emerson Etem
Brendan Gaunce - Jared McCann - Chris Higgins
Ben Hutton - Nikita Tryamkin
Dan Hamhuis - Yannick Weber
Matt Bartkowski - Alex Biega
Jacob Markstrom
Tomas Hertl – Joe Thornton – Joe Pavelski
Melker Karlsson – Logan Couture – Joonas Donskoi
Patrick Marleau – Chris Tierney – Joel Ward
Micheal Haley – Dainius Zubrus – Tommy Wingels
Paul Martin – Brent Burns
Dylan DeMelo – Justin Braun
Brenden Dillon – Roman Polak
Martin Jones
One Observation
Some brave soul out there in internet land, presumably of sound mind and body, actually sat down at a table, opened up their computer and strained the very limitations of human logic in an attempt to justify why Sbisa for Yakapov could be a real thing.
In real life.
Seriously.
Fearless Prediction
At this point the book is out on Vancouver: put in a solid third period - even a paltry five or ten minutes - and the points are probably yours.
Maybe the Sharks take their foot off the gas after punching their ticket last night, but I don't see why any playoff-bound team is going to suddenly play down to Vancouver's level.
4-2 Sharks.
This season needs to end.
GCG.
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