GAME DAY PREVIEW: Game Twenty Eight- Canucks vs Toronto

VANCOUVER CANUCKS (10-15-2) vs TORONTO MAPLE LEAFS (18-5-2)

ROGERS ARENA- VANCOUVER, BC

4:00PM PST

TV: SPORTSNET PACIFIC, SPORTSNET ONTARIO, CBC. RADIO: SPORTSNET 650

OPPOSING BLOG: PENSION PLAN PUPPETS

The last 48 hours are a perfect example of why it’s so bloody frustrating to be a fan of this team. The win? The win was fine, and well deserved. They were the better team, and doing so without their best player in the lineup against the top team in the North Division was impressive. It’s the game we got from Jake Virtanen.

Two goals from Jake was awesome, and he looked like a threat all night long. It’s that he doesn’t do this on a nightly basis, let alone weekly that is maddening. If he would just show up and do this stuff, and yes he is definitely capable of playing at that level all the time, the Canucks would be a better team for it. It speaks volumes that his 300th career game was just another of those games where you had to look at the lineup card to be certain he actually played in the game. Are they going to trade him? Should they? Who the hell even knows? I mean, there are a lot of people who cover this team who have varying thoughts on this, but yesterday Jim Benning came along and blew everyone’s damn minds.

The guy who has been in charge of this franchise for almost 7 years now came out and told the faithful that things are really hard, it’s not really his fault things have turned out this way, and if we can just be patient for a couple more years, the Canucks will be a contender again. What absolute garbage. And that’s the worst part. The pure lack of respect for the intelligence of this fan base. Unlike a lot of other teams, there is no other home town team that people can get behind. The Lions and Whitecaps are never going to be more popular than the Canucks, and that’s not a knock on them. Vancouver is a hockey mad town that has suffered decades of frustration and heartbreak from the moment this franchise was born. We were patient with you when you said it would be a quick turn around. We were patient with you when you were giving Jayson Megna 20 minutes of ice time a night. We were patient through Torts and Willie. And have been patient through Travis Green.

No. I will not be patient anymore, especially when you cannot take responsibility for this self inflicted injury. The Canucks are a mess. You made them that way. No event or situation made things the way they are. They find themselves in this situation because of the moves that you made: terrible contracts, bad decisions and over payments that have hamstrung this team in the past, present and future. I have absolutely no confidence whatsoever that you can put out the garbage fire that rages at Rogers Arena,

LINEUPS

Courtesy of nhl.com, this appears like what we’re gonna see these teams put on the ice tonight:

Maple Leafs projected lineup

Joe Thornton — Auston Matthews — Mitchell Marner

Alexander Kerfoot — John Tavares — William Nylander

Zach Hyman — Pierre Engvall — Ilya Mikheyev

Jimmy Vesey — Travis Boyd — Jason Spezza

Morgan Rielly — TJ Brodie

Jake Muzzin — Justin Holl

Travis Dermott — Zach Bogosian

Frederik Andersen

Michael Hutchinson

Scratched: Alexander Barabanov, Nic Petan

Injured: Wayne Simmonds (wrist), Jack Campbell (lower body)

Canucks projected lineup

Nils Hoglander — J.T. Miller — Brock Boeser

Tanner Pearson — Bo Horvat — Jake Virtanen

Marc Michaelis — Brandon Sutter — Adam Gaudette

Antoine Roussel — Jay Beagle — Jayce Hawryluk

Alexander Edler — Nate Schmidt

Quinn Hughes — Travis Hamonic

Jordie Benn — Tyler Myers

Thatcher Demko

Braden Holtby

Scratched: Jalen Chatfield, Olli Juolevi, Zack MacEwen

Injured: Elias Pettersson (upper body), Justin Bailey (upper body), Tyler Motte (undisclosed), Micheal Ferland (head)

It looks like we’ll see the same lineup from the Canucks tonight, and that includes no Elias Pettersson, who is listed as day to day and we should see Thatcher Demko, who was fantastic on Thursday night, back in the crease. The Leafs will go with Frederik Andersen after Michael Hutchinson was in goal for the loss Thursday.

GAME DAY CHATTER

GAME DAY BATTLE HYMN

Beer soaked German thrash legends TANKARD are up today, with some good advice for dealing with this team: get Shit Faced. Enjoy the game. Go Canucks Go.