Canucks Army GDT #61 – Canucks @ Sabres

Broadcast Info

Lineups

LW	C	RW
Daniel Sedin	Henrik Sedin	Zack Kassian
Shawn Matthias	Nick Bonino	Radim Vrbata
Chris Higgins	Linden Vey	Derek Dorsett
Ronalds Kenins	Bo Horvat	Jannik Hansen

Defensive Pairings
Dan Hamhuis	Yannick Weber
Luca Sbisa	Alex Biega
Ryan Stanton	Adam Clendening

Canucks will go with the same lineup against the Sabres as they did against the Bruins. Eddie Lack will start in goal once again.

LW	C	RW
Matt Moulson	Torrey Mitchell	Brian Gionta
Marcus Foligno	Brian Flynn	Chris Stewart
Johan Larsson	Phil Varone	Zac Dalpe
Cody Hodgson	Matt Ellis	Nicolas Deslauriers

Defensive Pairings
Andre Benoit	Zach Bogosian
Mike Weber	Rasmus Ristolainen
Andrej Meszaros	Mark Pysyk

With Zemgus Girgensons and Tyler Ennis out, Torrey Mitchell (and not Cody Hodgson) is Buffalo’s 1st line centre tonight. Mike “third best” Weber makes his return to the lineup. Michal Neuvirth will play in goal.

Head to Head

Storylines

• Kass or CoHo? – Any time the Sabres and Canucks meet, we have to dredge up the Kassian-or-Hodgson debate as it is now tradition. I think we’re pretty close to putting this one to bed though:

• It’s a trap! – Regardless of the outcome of Thursday night’s game, this will have been a successful road trip for the Canucks. With a depleted lineup – the club went into the trip missing their two middle-six centremen and their entire first-pairing, and then lost an additional first-line winger and their starting goaltender – the Canucks have won three of four on the road trip so far. Now only the worst team in the history of National Hockey League play is standing in their way of completing a dominant trip. It’s a classic trap game. So long as the Canucks can keep their motivation up, this shouldn’t be much of a contest. 
• Twin Power – Henrik Sedin enters Thursday night’s contest on a tidy little five game point streak, that has seen the Canucks’ captain rack up three goals and eight total points in his club’s last five contests. That’s one way for your best players to step up and help off-set the loss of an entire first defensive pair…