GAME DAY PREVIEW- Game Forty: Canucks vs Ottawa

VANCOUVER CANUCKS (18-18-3) vs OTTAWA SENATORS (16-26-4)

ROGERS ARENA- VANCOUVER, BC

7:00PM PST

TV: SPORTSNET PACIFIC, TSN5. RADIO: SPORTSNET 650

OPPOSING BLOG: SILVER SEVEN SENS

The fever dream season continues, with two teams that are both looking for their 3rd straight win. The Canucks are coming off two straight wins over the 1st place Toronto Maple Leafs, the last one an inspiring 6-3 win that saw Vancouver score 4 times in the 3rd period to get the win.

The Sens meanwhile rattled off impressive wins over the Montreal Canadiens and Calgary Flames, and have won 3 of their last 4 contests heading into tonight. While some teams have struggled against the Senators, the Canucks have been able to beat them in all 5 meetings so far this season. They’ve outscored Ottawa 22-7 in those 5 games.

The wins over Toronto are nice, but the playoffs are still a long shot at this point. They sit 10 points back of Montreal with 5 games in hand, and with 5 games remaining this month, are still in a situation where they need to pretty much run the table in order to pass the Habs and take over that last playoff spot in the North Division.

And while the play of Braden Holtby in those two wins was pretty special, after all his struggles this season, the Canucks have to be feeling good that they’ll have Thatcher Demko ready to go tonight.

LINEUPS

Courtesy of nhl.com, if you watch this game, you’ll probably see these guys on the ice:

Senators projected lineup

Brady Tkachuk — Josh Norris — Drake Batherson

Tim Stutzle — Colin White — Evgenii Dadonov

Nick Paul — Chris Tierney — Ryan Dzingel

Alex Formenton — Shane Pinto — Connor Brown

Thomas Chabot — Nikita Zaitsev

Erik Brannstrom — Artem Zub

Victor Mete — Josh Brown

Matt Murray

Anton Forsberg

Scratched: Artem Anisimov, Marcus Hogberg, Michael Amadio, Jacob Bernard-Docker

Injured: Austin Watson (hand)

Canucks projected lineup

Tanner Pearson — Bo Horvat — Nils Hoglander

Matthew Highmore — J.T. Miller — Brock Boeser

Marc Michaelis — Brandon Sutter — Jayce Hawryluk

Jimmy Vesey — Travis Boyd — Jake Virtanen

Quinn Hughes — Travis Hamonic

Nate Schmidt — Tyler Myers

Olli Juolevi — Jalen Chatfield

Thatcher Demko

Braden Holtby

Scratched: Tyler Graovac, Guillaume Brisebois, Madison Bowey

Injured: Antoine Roussel (lower body), Tyler Motte (COVID-19), Zack MacEwen (undisclosed), Elias Pettersson (upper body), Jay Beagle (undisclosed), Justin Bailey (shoulder), Micheal Ferland (head)

Suspended: Alexander Edler

And for clarification, you aren’t seeing things. That is Matthew Highmore listed on the 2nd line with Miller and Boeser. I can’t even...

Anyway, Marc Michealis makes his return to the lineup to replace Antoine Roussel, who was injured on Tuesday night’s win and will be out for at least two weeks. It is increasingly concerning that Tyler Motte is still not well enough to return to the lineup, though.

GAME DAY CHATTER

GAME DAY BATTLE HYMN

GO AHEAD AND DIE is a new Max Cavalera (ex-Sepultura/Soulfly/Cavalera Conspiracy/Killer Be Killed) project that sees him working with his son Igor Amadeus Cavalera, and drummer Zach Coleman. It’s an opportunity for Max to get some of that punk angst out of his system in a more stripped down way than we saw with Nailbomb. It’s not earth-shatteringly different, but it’s Max, and like most of what he does, it’s worth checking out.