GAME DAY PREVIEW- Game 23: Canucks @ Nashville

VANCOUVER CANUCKS vs NASHVILLE PREDATORS

5:00PM PST BRIDGESTONE ARENA, NASHVILLE, TN

TV: SPORTSNET PACIFIC. RADIO: SN650.

OPPOSITION BLOG: ON THE FORECHECK

Tuesday night was easily the worst performance of the season by the Canucks, as they got worked over by the Dallas Stars 6-1. And as is usually the case, a blowout loss leads to some type of a response, whether it be a closed-door players only meeting, or a wholesale lineup shuffle. Well, it may not be a wholesale one, but Travis Green has certainly shaken things up to try and send a message.

He also seems to not want to play into what some feel is developing into a goaltending controversy, by giving Jacob Markstrom make amends for a bad performance Tuesday. Of course, this could all blow up in their faces, and Friday morning the latest chapter of the Canucks Goaltending Controversy will be well underway. That being said, this is the team the Canucks most recently beat, so it wouldn’t shock me to see him come back with a solid outing tonight.

The Preds have lost 3 straight, and will be looking to try and stop the bleeding as they continue to chase the Canucks for that final Western Wild Card spot. If the Preds want to be there at the end of the year, they’re going to need to get better goaltending than they’ve been getting. Both Pekka Rinne and Jussi Saros are rocking sub .900 save percentages right now, and at least one of them will need to improve if they want any chance of making the playoffs.

LINEUPS:

It was a foregone conclusion that Loui Eriksson would be one of the scratches tonight, simply because he was as ineffective in the Dallas game as he’s ever been. But to have him replaced by Tyler Graovac, and then sitting Sven Baertschi for Zack MacEwan is a heck of a statement. Happy to see the Utica kids get a shot, and it will be interesting to see what MacEwan can do on a line with Bo Horvat and J.T. Miller, but it just feels like Baertschi is on a pretty short leash at the moment.

There’s also some defensive shuffling, as Travis Green moves Christopher Tanev to the top pairing with Quinn Hughes. Alexander Edler will pair up with Troy Stecher, which is likely going to mean more well-deserved minutes for Troy from Richmond. Tyler Myers and Jordie Benn will make up the 3rd pairing, and I wouldn’t read too much into that til we see ice time numbers after tonight. I do like the optics at least of taking Edler off the top pairing. He’s being overused right now, and spreading the minutes around will pay off in the long run.

And from tsn.com this is what we could see from the Preds tonight:

POSSIBLE PREDS LINE-UP

Forsberg-Johansen-Arvidsson

Jarnkrok-Duchene-Granlund

Grimaldi-Bonino-Smith

Watson-Sissons-Olivier

Josi-Ellis

Ekholm-Fabbro

Hamhuis-Santini

Rinne

GAME DAY CHATTER:

GAME DAY BATTLE HYMN:

The undead bastards known as GHOUL are up today, with a fun little animated video for the track ‘Shred The Dead’ off their last album Dungeon Bastards.