CANUCKS ARMY GDT# 5 – CANUCKS VS. BLUES

8 years ago

The red-hot Vancouver Canucks host the equally impressive St. Louis Blues at the Rog this evening. Vancouver holds the upper hand with a 3-0-1 record to the Blues 3-1 record, take that losers! Last night, the Blues beat up on the lowly Oilers but really that means nothing while the Canucks talked about their new personal goal songs (hopefully we get sick of them).

Vancouver won all 3 games against St. Louis last year and would love to keep their run going. How they do that, well as usual we have no freaking clue!

BROADCAST INFO

TV: SPORTSNET VAN (Some Blue Jays game is on or something?)

RADIO: TSN 1040

PUCK DROP: 7:05 PM

LINEUPS

Who’s in and who’s out has been quite the hot button issue this past week but seeing as how there are some obvious line combos that scream “USE ME” the frustration is warranted. Jake Virtanen had a good first game and almost scored. Maybe nervous energy got in his way? Sutter is still with the Twins for now, and apparently Prust is on the second line which makes tons of sense. Our second favourite, Sven Baertschi, will sit. Yannick “Best” Weber will do the same. Ryan Miller will be in net because well, why would you consider starting Richard Bachman?

Vancouver Canucks Lines courtesy of DailyFaceoff.com

(we’ll have an embed for you as soon as possible; DFO is temporarily displaying last game’s lines)

The Blues are coming off a win and will likely ice the same lineup because a plane ride from EDM to VAN isn’t that far. Vladimir Tarasenko is all kinds of awesome for the Blues and had a big game last night. There is a chance underachiever Scott Gomez makes his season debut with a music note on his chest after being awarded a contract after a PTO. Kevin Shattenkirk may slot in as well (lower body) after being injured against Calgary.

Jake Allen will start.

St. Louis Blues lines courtesy of DailyFaceoff.com

LW	C	RW
Alex Steen	Paul Stastny	Vladimir Tarasenko
Dmitrij Jaskin	David Backes	Troy Brouwer
Scottie Upshall	Jori Lehtera	Jaden Schwartz
Steve Ott	Kyle Brodziak	Ryan Reaves

Defensive Pairings
Jay Bouwmeester	Alex Pietrangelo
Carl Gunnarsson	Colton Parayko
Joel Edmundson	Robert Bortuzzo

REASONS TO WATCH THIS GAME

Release the Cracken! Is Adam Cracknell the new Jeff Cowan? He doesn’t command bras, but he commands respect. Two goals in as games, a 50% faceoff success rate, and endless Internet fame are his riches. Let’s make it 3!
Ryan Miller is once again in the net for the Canucks and he is playing some great hockey. His puck stops are elite, his rebounds are afraid to exist and get this, Canucks fans LIKE HIM RIGHT NOW. Surreal stuff. Remember, sometimes it’s not the team we’re playing to watch (Crosby, Ovi, Stamkos, McNuggets) but the guys that play here every night. Sounds stupid? Well, Roberto Luongo doesn’t play here anymore and it wasn’t his fault.
It would be great to see Virtanen and McCann hook up for a period. Willie needs to loosen up those reigns a bit and see what his new toys can do. Bo Horvat is the measuring stick so far and even though they aren’t the same players as Bo, you can’t find out anything unless you give them opportunities.
Luca Sbisa is doing alright, hey gang? His mistakes are dwindling thus far, Ben Hutton seems to be the yin to his yang and I haven’t heard one bad thing said about him in at least a week on Twitter. Will this last? Probably not, we tend to fall back to our ways at some point but right now I’d like to see him succeed. They’re paying him enough.
Sven Baertschi is sitting tonight as is Yannick Weber. That makes no sense why Baertschi is the odd man out; Prust with his pity-points shouldn’t justify his spot this early. We have a knuckle dragger and having Horvat and Vrby with Sven makes waaaaay more sense. Willie D comes with his good and his bad, this being the latter. On D however, getting Weber in is a bit tougher but Bartowski could be taken out no problem. He’s seen what Weber can do, right?
If, and this is a big if, Alex Burrows scores tonight, I want to see a Jose Bautista stick flip if it’s a go-ahead or game-winning goal. Watch the web explode!

WHAT THEY’RE SAYING

MY TAKE

Honestly, why the heck not? Canucks win this one in regulation (big news) and oddly enough Adam Cracknell gets yet another goal to set Canucks Twitter into complete combustion! 4-2 Canucks and hopefully Virtanen lays out Scottie “Too hotty” Upshall. I hate that guy (Kelowna/Kamloops thing).