GAME DAY PREVIEW/GAME THREAD- Game 24: Canucks @ Washington

VANCOUVER CANUCKS vs WASHINGTON CAPITALS

9:30AM PST CAPITAL ONE ARENA, WASHINGTON, DC

TV: SPORTSNET PACIFIC. RADIO: SN650.

OPPOSITION BLOG: JAPERS’ RINK

While the simple fact of life for the Vancouver Canucks is that they have to endure one of, if not the worst road schedules every season, this particular road trip certainly has that “they’re being punished” feeling to it (as if the Luongo cap recapture wasn’t enough). With another daytime game (start time at 9:30 am on a Saturday morning in BC) and the back to back at the end against the Oilers, I would ask who they pissed off, but it’s probably just their mere existence, as always.

And after responding to their worst game of the season with one that while it wasn’t one of their better ones from a pure statistical view, anytime you can get a goaltending performance like they did from Jacob Markstrom AND go 5 for 6 on the power play, that’s a highlight to any team’s season. And their reward for this? A nice early game against the team atop the NHL standings. Yes, that would be the one you blew a four goal lead to and lost.

LINEUPS:

As far as the Canucks go, we’ll see the same lineup that won in Nashville, though we don’t have a confirmed starter as yet (courtesy nhl.com)

Canucks projected lineup

Tanner Pearson -- Elias Pettersson -- Brock Boeser

J.T. Miller -- Bo Horvat -- Zack MacEwen

Josh Leivo -- Adam Gaudette -- Jake Virtanen

Tim Schaller -- Jay Beagle -- Tyler Graovac

Alexander Edler -- Troy Stecher

Quinn Hughes -- Christopher Tanev

Jordie Benn -- Tyler Myers

Jacob Markstrom

Thatcher Demko

Scratched: Sven Baertschi, Loui Eriksson, Oscar Fantenberg

Injured: Brandon Sutter (groin strain), Tyler Motte (foot), Antoine Roussel (knee), Micheal Ferland (concussion protocol)

Capitals projected lineup

Alex Ovechkin -- Evgeny Kuznetsov -- Tom Wilson

Jakub Vrana -- Lars Eller -- T.J. Oshie

Richard Panik -- Chander Stephenson -- Travis Boyd

Beck Malenstyn -- Michael Sgarbossa -- Brendan Leipsic

Michal Kempny -- John Carlson

Dmitry Orlov -- Nick Jensen

Jonas Siegenthaler -- Radko Gudas

Braden Holtby

Ilya Samsonov

Scratched: Christian Djoos

Injured: Nicklas Backstrom (upper body), Nic Dowd (upper body), Carl Hagelin (upper body)

Suspended: Garnet Hathaway

With the Calgary Flames in Philadelphia for a 10 am game, getting 2 points today is critical for the Canucks, who likely will want to dole out a little payback for that meeting earlier this season.

GAME DAY BATTLE HYMN:

From nearby Baltimore, MISERY INDEX have been around since 2001, and being this close to America’s capital are unsurprisingly very vocal when it comes to calling out those in positions of power in the world. From their most recent disc ‘Rituals of Power’, here’s ‘I Disavow’ and a bonus track from that album, an absolutely vicious cover of the NAILBOMB classic ‘Wasting Away’.