GAME DAY PREVIEW- GAME TWENTY-FOUR: Canucks @ Ottawa- Dec 1, 2021

VANCOUVER CANUCKS (7-14-2) vs OTTAWA SENATORS (4-14-1)

CANADIAN TIRE CENTRE, OTTAWA, ON

4:00PM PST

TV: SPORTSNET PACIFIC, SPORTSNET ONE. RADIO: SPORTSNET 650

OPPOSING BLOG: SILVER SEVEN SENS

Normally, you’d have to either be a die hard, or somewhat south of the sanity border to look at a game featuring the last place team in the Pacific taking on the NHL’s worst. Unfortunately, there’s a few storylines that make for some almost must-see tv tonight in the Nation’s capital.

Let’s start off with the season debut of Adam ‘Patient Zero’ Gaudette, who will finally play against the Canucks for the first time after being a healthy scratch twice this season for the Chicago Blackhawks. While I am sure that he would love to have a big first game against his former squad for the team that picked him up on waivers a few days ago, the Canucks will be pretty keen to ensure that doesn’t happen. Maybe someone can ask if he’s reached out to Brandon Sutter to see how his long COVID battle is going?

Anyway, that should be fun. I will say I do feel sorry for Sens fans. Like us, they have a terrible owner, the difference being ours is absent save for a few tweets now and then, whereas Eugene Melnyk takes great pains to remind their fan base how awful he is on a regular basis. Their management is disaster, though at least we can say our team didn’t look at Pierre McGuire and think “There, there is the man whose hockey know-how is what we need to turn the fortunes of this franchise around!”

Normally, one should be confident heading into a team that’s played as poorly as the Senators. I’m scared to death, especially coming off that 2-1 win in Montreal Monday evening. Going up against a team that is 1-9-0 in their last ten? Oh yeah, this has humiliating road loss written alllll over it.

LINEUPS

Courtesy of nhl.com, this is what these teams will trot out for tonight’s contest:

Canucks projected lineup

Tanner Pearson — Bo Horvat — Conor Garland

Nils Hoglander — J.T. Miller — Brock Boeser

Justin Dowling — Elias Pettersson — Vasily Podkolzin

Tyler Motte — Jason Dickinson — Alex Chiasson

Oliver Ekman-Larsson — Tyler Myers

Quinn Hughes — Luke Schenn

Kyle Burroughs — Tucker Poolman

Thatcher Demko

Jaroslav Halak

Scratched: Brad Hunt, Juho Lammikko

Injured: Brandon Sutter (illness), Matthew Highmore (upper body), Brady Keeper (leg)

Senators projected lineup

Brady Tkachuk — Josh Norris — Drake Batherson

Tim Stutzle — Nick Paul — Connor Brown

Alex Formenton — Adam Gaudette — Zach Sanford

Chris Tierney — Dylan Gambrell — Austin Watson

Thomas Chabot — Artem Zub

Victor Mete — Nikita Zaitsev

Nick Holden — Lassi Thomson

Filip Gustavsson

Anton Forsberg

Scratched: Tyler Ennis, Michael Del Zotto

Injured: Colin White (shoulder), Erik Brannstrom (broken hand), Shane Pinto (upper body), Josh Brown (hand)

The Canucks will go with the same lineup as Monday, while the Sens will get Drake Batherson back for the first time since he was added to the COVID protocol list a couple weeks ago.

GAME DAY CHATTER

GAME DAY BATTLE HYMN

When all else fails. call on the Priest. This classic from the ‘Screaming For Vengeance’ album is from their performance at 1983’s US Festival (There’s a couple great documentaries on Prime about the two concerts in 1982 & 83 you should check out). Enjoy the game, Go Canucks Go! Fire Benning and Weisbrod.