GAME DAY PREVIEW- GAME SEVENTY: Canucks vs Vegas- Apr 3, 2022

VANCOUVER CANUCKS (32-28-9) vs VEGAS GOLDEN KNIGHTS (38-28-4)

ROGERS ARENA, VANCOUVER, BC

4:00PM PST

TV: SPORTSNET PACIFIC. RADIO: SPORTSNET 650

OPPOSING BLOG: KNIGHTS ON ICE

Do or die time. If you’ve bought in on the Bruce Train (and it’s kinda weird that management doesn’t appear to be among that group), your dreams of seeing the Canucks battle their way back from oblivion into a playoff spot have to now believe that the Canucks can win their remaining 13 games of the season. It’s almost the only way they can do it. They can, at worst, lose two more games. Two. Any more than that, and they cannot hit the 95 point threshold, and even then, finishing 11-2-0 is only going to give them a 62.6% chance of making it.

So while they’re gonna battle hard the rest of the way, or at least until the hammer drops on their season officially, they can make life miserable for some other teams along the way, and none more so than Vegas, who the Canucks will play three times in the next ten days.

There’s winnable games to round out the season: Two against Arizona, plus San Jose, Ottawa and Seattle. There’s also three back to backs, and some tough games against the Flames, Oilers, Wild and Kings. This won’t be easy, but while this Vegas team is good, they are not an unstoppable juggernaut. The Canucks are also getting healthy just in time for this last kick at the can, with a few returnees tonight including Bo Horvat, who missed some time with a non-covid illness. It’ll likely keep Brad Richardson out of the lineup tonight, but Jason Dickinson and Tucker Poolman will both be back in tonight after long stretches on the IR.

LINEUPS

Golden Knights projected lineup

Evgenii Dadonov — Jack Eichel — Chandler Stephenson

Jonathan Marchessault — William Karlsson — Michael Amadio

Pavel Dorofeyev — Nicolas Roy — Mattias Janmark

Dylan Coghlan — Jake Leschyshyn — Jonas Rondbjerg

Brayden McNabb — Shea Theodore

Ben Hutton — Alex Pietrangelo

Alec Martinez — Zach Whitecloud

Logan Thompson

Robin Lehner

Scratched: None

Injured: Keegan Kolesar (upper body), Nolan Patrick (undisclosed), Nicolas Hague (lower body), Reilly Smith (lower body), Brett Howden (upper body), William Carrier (upper body)

Canucks projected lineup

Tanner Pearson — J.T. Miller — Conor Garland

Elias Pettersson — Bo Horvat — Brock Boeser

Vasily Podkolzin — Juho Lammikko — Alex Chiasson

Nic Petan — Jason Dickinson — William Lockwood

Oliver Ekman-Larsson — Tyler Myers

Quinn Hughes — Luke Schenn

Travis Dermott — Tucker Poolman

Thatcher Demko

Jaroslav Halak

Scratched: Brad Hunt

Injured: Brad Richardson (illness), Matthew Highmore (upper body), Nils Hoglander (lower body), Kyle Burroughs (upper body)

Lehner’s been out for a bit but could be good to go tonight, which obviously would be less than ideal for the Canucks. If Richardson is cleared to play, Dickinson will move to a wing, and one of Petan or Lockwood will come out. The Golden Knights still have a number of players on LTIR, but fear not, for they will miraculously be medically cleared to play before a Game One situation.

GAME DAY CHATTER

Tonight is the Autism Acceptance Night game, another great event by one of the awesome community initiatives the Canucks are involved with. Take a moment to watch the video above to learn more about Autism Acceptance Month and the Canucks Autism Network.

GAME DAY BATTLE HYMN

Hey, it’s a song whose title we mentioned in the article! From ‘Live In Eindhoven’, this is ‘Do Or Die’ by TESTAMENT.