GAME DAY IN THE BUBBLE PREVIEW- CANUCKS VS GOLDEN KNIGHTS: GAME SEVEN

VANCOUVER CANUCKS vs VEGAS GOLDEN KNIGHTS

6:00 PM PDT THE BUBBLE @ ROGERS PLACE, EDMONTON, AB

TV: SPORTSNET, CBC,NBCSN. RADIO: SN650.

OPPOSITION BLOG: KNIGHTS ON ICE

It’s all you can really hope for in the Canucks’ situation. One game to decide it all. And you can look at how they were outplayed through massive stretches again, but just like they did against St Louis, Vancouver showed that if you give this team a sniff, they will make you regret it.

It’s been a strange series, hasn’t it? If the Canucks can pull this off, one of the things that you can honestly say about it, was that Vegas lost because they didn’t get the goaltending they needed from Robin Lehner. The same Robin Lehner who shut the Canucks out twice in this series. Absolutely mindblowing. And let’s not kid ourselves here: there’s no way in hell that this series should have even gone to a Game Six let alone a Seventh and deciding game. This Canucks team doesn’t care about narratives, or what should happen. They’ve just gone out since this whole thing started and went to work crushing Stanley Cup dreams of teams better than they are.

If this ends tonight, don’t hang your heads. We got 17 playoff games from the Vancouver Canucks this year if they lose tonight, If I had told you that they’d get swept in the first round, I think a lot of you would be like me and be okay with that, because after a half decade of futility and frustration they were playing games that mattered, If they win tonight? Hang on to your butts, because we’re living in a world that’s crazy, the Vancouver Canucks winning the Stanley Cup is one of the few things that actually makes sense.

LINEUPS:

Courtesy nhl.com, here’s what we should see tonight:

Canucks projected lineup

J.T. Miller — Elias Pettersson — Brock Boeser

Tanner Pearson — Bo Horvat — Tyler Toffoli

Antoine Roussel — Adam Gaudette — Brandon Sutter

Tyler Motte — Jay Beagle — Jake Virtanen

Alexander Edler — Troy Stecher

Quinn Hughes — Christopher Tanev

Oscar Fantenberg — Tyler Myers

Thatcher Demko

Louis Domingue

Scratched: Olli Juolevi, Justin Bailey, Jalen Chatfield, Tyler Graovac, Brogan Rafferty, Loui Eriksson, Jordie Benn

Unfit to play: Micheal Ferland, Josh Leivo, Jacob Markstrom

Golden Knights projected lineup

Max Pacioretty — William Karlsson — Mark Stone

Jonathan Marchessault — Paul Stastny — Reilly Smith

Nick Cousins — Nicolas Roy — Alex Tuch

William Carrier — Chandler Stephenson — Ryan Reaves

Alec Martinez — Shea Theodore

Brayden McNabb — Nate Schmidt

Nick Holden — Zach Whitecloud

Robin Lehner

Marc-Andre Fleury

Scratched: Dylan Coghlan, Oscar Dansk, Reid Duke, Deryk Engelland, Nicolas Hague, Keegan Kolesar, Peyton Krebs, Jon Merrill, Gage Quinney, Patrick Brown

Unfit to play: Tomas Nosek

No changes for the Canucks, as Thatcher Demko gets to build on yet another incredible storyline in this chapter of Canucks history. As far as Vegas, they have a problem in goal. Robin Lehner has lost every game that Vancouver’s scored in, so do they put him in and hope for a shutout when it’s starting to look like the Canucks are in his head, or go with Fleury, who has never lost to the Canucks. This decision could have a huge impact on the future of this Vegas squad,

PREGAME CHATTER:

GAME DAY BATTLE HYMN:

It’s like it was written for this moment... Enjoy the game. Win or lose, this has been so much damn fun, eh? Go Canucks Go!