GAME DAY PREVIEW- Game Forty Six: Canucks vs Edmonton

VANCOUVER CANUCKS (19-23-3) vs EDMONTON OILERS (30-17-2)

ROGERS ARENA- VANCOUVER, BC

7:00PM PST

TV: SNP, SNW. RADIO: SPORTSNET 650

OPPOSING BLOG: THE COPPER AND BLUE

It’s just not going to get any better til this god-forsaken season is over. And with yet more injuries, this time to Brandon Sutter and Marc Michaelis, the Canucks will be looking at another shuffling of their bottom six forwards. The lack of depth, and the Canucks inability to do anything to change it is continuing to hurt this team, and like it was against the Leafs, it is going to be exposed over these next four games.

And as if this lineup, which is giving me some serious Willie Desjardins-era PTSD, isn’t bad enough, they have to face the Edmonton Oilers for these next four games. The Oilers that can clinch a playoff spot with a win tonight. And they also have this Connor McDavid fellow, sitting a mere thirteen points away from one hundred on the season. It would not come as a surprise in the least if he were to accomplish this during one of the five remaining games the Oilers have against the Canucks.

If there’s a blessing here, it’s that we only have to endure another eleven games of this bullshit trying to be passed off as a professional hockey club. We’re seven years into the Jim Benning era, and the team is right back to where it was in the darkest hours early on in his tenure. How can you be okay with this?

It’s not like some of the problems this team is facing are injury related. Taking a player like Elias Pettersson out of any teams lineup would have a huge impact no matter who it was, but at the same time, your team shouldn’t be such a fragile house of cards that any one players absence sees the entire thing fall to the ground.

LINEUPS

Courtesy of nhl.com, here’s what these two teams will be offering up in terms of lineups tonight:

Oilers projected lineup

Leon Draisaitl — Connor McDavid — Jesse Puljujarvi

Dominik Kahun — Ryan Nugent-Hopkins — Kailer Yamamoto

Tyler Ennis — Ryan McLeod — Josh Archibald

James Neal — Jujhar Khaira — Alex Chiasson

Darnell Nurse — Tyson Barrie

Dmitry Kulikov — Adam Larsson

Caleb Jones — Ethan Bear

Mikko Koskinen

Mike Smith

Scratched: Alex Stalock, William Lagesson

Injured: Devin Shore (undisclosed), Gaetan Haas (undisclosed), Slater Koekkoek (collarbone), Zack Kassian (undisclosed), Joakim Nygard (undisclosed), Kris Russell (lower body)

Canucks projected lineup

Nils Hoglander — J.T. Miller — Brock Boeser

Tanner Pearson — Bo Horvat — Kole Lind

Matthew Highmore — Tyler Graovac — Jayce Hawryluk

Jimmy Vesey — Travis Boyd — Zack MacEwen

Alexander Edler — Nate Schmidt

Quinn Hughes — Travis Hamonic

Olli Juolevi — Tyler Myers

Braden Holtby

Thatcher Demko

Scratched: Madison Bowey, Jalen Chatfield, Jack Rathbone

Injured: Brandon Sutter (upper body), Mark Michaelis (upper body), Jake Virtanen (leave), Tyler Motte (undisclosed), Antoine Roussel (lower body), Elias Pettersson (upper body), Jay Beagle (undisclosed), Justin Bailey (shoulder), Micheal Ferland (head)

Graovac draws in tonight, and there’s a good chance that we see Rathbone make his NHL debut sometime this week. Gadjovich is in quarantine, which is why he won’t join the team til next week when they play in Winnipeg Monday and Tuesday.

GAME DAY CHATTER

GAME DAY BATTLE HYMN

Watched the ‘Born In The Basement’ documentary the other day, a film from former OVERKILL drummer Rat Skates. A little uneven at times, but a great document of the whole DIY nature of the early days of the thrash scene, it was a great look back at the New Jersey thrash legends. From their debut album ‘Feel The Fire’, this is ‘Rotten To The Core’. Enjoy the game, and we’re back tomorrow to do it all again.

Go Canucks Go.