GAME DAY PREVIEW- Game 57: Canucks vs Nashville

VANCOUVER CANUCKS vs NASHVILLE PREDATORS

7:00PM PST ROGERS ARENA, VANCOUVER, BC

TV: SN PACIFIC, CITY. RADIO: SN650.

OPPOSITION BLOG: ON THE FORECHECK.

It’s hard to try and focus on what is going to be a very important hockey game tonight for the Vancouver Canucks, when the buzz surrounding it is all about the pregame ceremonies, but we’ll try our best. Tonight is the first of three special evenings celebrating the careers of Daniel and Henrik Sedin. Tonight is also the night where if the Canucks don’t start playing better hockey, they will lose their grasp on top spot in the Pacific Division.

It doesn’t get any easier for the Canucks as Brock Boeser will be out a minimum of two games after being injured in Saturday night’s game against Calgary. And as is usually the case when a team loses 4 straight games, the coach does a little lineup adjusting to try and curtail the downward spiral. Travis Green is definitely doing that tonight as we take a look at the lineups...

LINEUPS:

Predators projected lineup

Matt Duchene — Ryan Johansen — Mikael Granlund

Filip Forsberg — Kyle Turris — Viktor Arvidsson

Rocco Grimaldi — Nick Bonino — Craig Smith

Calle Jarnkrok — Colton Sissons — Austin Watson

Roman Josi — Dante Fabbro

Jarred Tinordi — Mattias Ekholm

Dan Hamhuis — Yannick Weber

Pekka Rinne

Juuse Saros

Scratched: Matt Irwin, Yakov Trenin, Colin Blackwell

Injured: Ryan Ellis (upper body)

Canucks projected lineup

J.T. Miller — Elias Pettersson — Jake Virtanen

Tanner Pearson — Bo Horvat — Loui Eriksson

Antoine Roussel — Adam Gaudette — Brandon Sutter

Justin Bailey — Jay Beagle — Zack MacEwen

Quinn Hughes — Christopher Tanev

Alexander Edler — Troy Stecher

Jordie Benn — Tyler Myers

Jacob Markstrom

Thatcher Demko

Scratched: Guillaume Brisebois, Tim Schaller

Injured: Brock Boeser (upper body), Oscar Fantenberg (concussion), Tyler Motte (upper body), Josh Leivo (kneecap), Micheal Ferland (concussion symptoms), Tyler Graovac (lower body)

So as you can see there, Tim Schaller is out and that means both Zack MacEwen and Justin Bailey are in tonight on the 4th line with Jay Beagle. Personally I would have gone one step further and benched Benn to play Guillaume Brisebois, but whatever.

Tonight’s celebration is Legends night, and Stan Smyl, Markus Naslund and Trevor Linden will be in the house tonight for a pregame ceremony. They’re also wearing the skate jerseys tonight. The festivities get underway at 6:45.

GAME DAY CHATTER:

GAME DAY BATTLE HYMN:
In tribute to the Sedins, tonight some Swedish metal from their draft year of 1999. Off the album ‘Colony’ we’re serving up ‘Ordinary Story’ from IN FLAMES. Enjoy the game!