The Vancouver Canucks hit the road in search of more wins, playing three games in four nights, including back-to-backs against the Minnesota Wild and Colorado Avalanche on Monday morning and Tuesday evening.
With 18 road wins this season, the Canucks are second in the league for victories away from home, and they hope to continue picking up points in venues other than Rogers Arena.
Monday’s game begins at 11:00 a.m. PT, in honor of Family Day in British Columbia and Presidents’ Day in the United States. The Wild and Canucks both had their three-game winning streaks snapped on Saturday night. The Wild lost 3-2 in overtime at home to the Buffalo Sabres. The Wild have a 25-23-6 record this season and are four points away from a Western Conference wild card spot.
This will be the Canucks’ third and final game of the season against the Wild. On December 7th, Casey DeSmith won 2-0 with 26 saves. On December 16th, the Canucks lost to the Wild in a shootout, 2-1. If the upcoming game is like the previous two, we can expect another defensive battle between these two clubs.
Kirill Kaprizov leads the Wild’s offense, with 20 goals and 31 assists for 51 points in 47 games this season. Kaprisov joins Joel Eriksson Ek and Matt Boldy on the top line, and the trio has been extremely successful this season. All three players on the top line have 40 or more points, and they have combined for 15 goals and only six goals against.
On defense, rookie Brock Faber is currently second to Connor Bedard in rookie scoring, with four goals and 29 assists this season and an average of 25:05 per game. He has performed well on the first power play unit and will share time with Jonas Brodin as the top penalty-killing defence pairing.
Filip Gustavsson and Marc-Andre Fleury are a 1A-1B pairing in the net, with Gustavsson getting 31 starts to Fleury’s 22. The duo has save percentages around.900, but Gustavsson has two shutouts this season, while Fleury has one.
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