GAME DAY IN THE BUBBLE PREVIEW — CANUCKS VS WILD: GAME THREE

With the news that Micheal Ferland is heading back to Vancouver, he joins Tyler Toffoli and Adam Gaudette on the Canucks injured list and it means Travis Green may have to dip into the black aces for some help in this afternoon’s game. We don’t know yet if Antoine Roussel will be good to go after taking a puck to the face in Tuesday night’s win over Minnesota, and the possibility of seeing Zack MacEwan, Justin Bailey and/or Tyler Graovac in the lineup is very real.

One thing’s for certain, the Canucks need another effort from their top 6 like we saw in Tuesday’s game. It could also mean a bigger role for Jake Virtanen, who looked very much like he didn’t want to be coming out of the lineup again in limited minutes on the 4th line, though injuries saw him get some time on the 2nd PP unit later in the game.

The Wild have somehow come through this unscathed injury-wise, and that’s going to be a definite advantage in this series for them. Another advantage? The red-hot Kevin Fiala, who just seems to be scoring at will right now. The Canucks have to find a way to shut him down if they hope to take the series lead today.

*PROJECTED* LINEUPS (Courtesy of NHL.com)

Canucks projected lineup

J.T. Miller — Elias Pettersson — Brock Boeser

Tanner Pearson — Bo Horvat — Loui Eriksson

Antoine Roussel — Brandon Sutter — Zack MacEwen

Tyler Motte — Jay Beagle — Jake Virtanen

Quinn Hughes — Christopher Tanev

Alexander Edler — Troy Stecher

Oscar Fantenberg — Tyler Myers

Jacob Markstrom

Thatcher Demko

Scratched: Justin Bailey, Jordie Benn, Jalen Chatfield, Louis Domingue, Tyler Graovac, Olli Juolevi, Brogan Rafferty

Unfit to play: Tyler Toffoli, Adam Gaudette, Micheal Ferland, Josh Leivo

Wild projected lineup

Jordan Greenway — Eric Staal — Kevin Fiala

Zach Parise — Joel Eriksson Ek — Luke Kunin

Marcus Foligno — Alex Galchenyuk — Mats Zuccarello

Ryan Donato — Mikko Koivu — Ryan Hartman

Ryan Suter — Jared Spurgeon

Jonas Brodin — Matt Dumba

Brad Hunt — Carson Soucy

Alex Stalock

Devan Dubnyk

Scratched: Matt Bartkowski, Louie Belpedio, Luke Johnson, Kaapo Kahkonen, Gerald Mayhew, Brennan Menell, Victor Rask, Kyle Rau, Mat Robson, Nico Sturm

Unfit to play: Greg Pateryn

PREGAME CHATTER

Here’s a great look at the behind the scenes work by Canucks staff, getting the team ready to play inside the bubble:

GAME DAY BATTLE HYMN

Some old school Vancouver metal for ya today, with some live CAUSTIC THOUGHT, shot live at the Town Pump. This band featured Jed Simon and Byron Stroud, who would go on to bigger things with STRAPPING YOUNG LAD and ZIMMERS HOLE. One of the better local bands of the era, and a great pump up song for today’s game. Go Canucks Go!