Let’s just get it out of the way early, the Vancouver Canucks play at 4:00 pm PT tonight.

No, it’s not because the Toronto Maple Leafs are in town. In fact, the Canucks are in Dallas to play the Stars tonight.

The Stars are a good team. They are seventh in the league for goals scored and eighth in the league for goals against. They can do it at both ends of the ice and that’s why they are leading the Central Divison with 92 points through 72 games.

Jason Robertson is the man to watch today from the Stars. The 23-year-old is quickly budding into a superstar, with 41 goals and 50 assists through 72 games this season. Another name to watch for is Joe Pavelski, who at 38 years old is still a solid contributor. He’s fourth on the Stars for points this season with 21 goals and 46 assists.

Jake Oettinger has been the leading man between the pipes for the Stars this season but Matt Murray (the other one) was recalled from the AHL on Friday, he could be an option for the Stars tonight.

As for the Canucks, it looks like Aidan McDonough’s debut will have to wait.

Sportsnet’s Dan Murphy tweeted out some information about Guillaume Brisebois being a game-time decision and that McDonough’s debut will almost certainly come tomorrow in Chicago.

Let’s talk about the lines, and what we saw from practice.

Not much to talk about in regard to changes to the lineup.

It would be interesting to see a Jack Rathbone and Filip Hronek pairing. As we saw in Murph’s tweet earlier, Brisebois is a game-time decision and sliding Rathbone in to play with Hronek would make for an exciting pairing that can move the puck up ice in a hurry.

According to Murph, the top power play unit is going to try two defencemen tonight. Brock Boeser, J.T. Miller and Elias Pettersson will hold it down as the three forwards while Hronek and Quinn Hughes settled things up at the quarterback and half-wall positions.

Head coach Rick Tocchet spoke about running with the two defencemen on his first power play unit.

“Sometimes you want evaluation processes and this is part of it,” said Tocchet. “I think Filip [Hronek] can add a couple of different elements up there and I think [Quinn] Hughes and him, especially against a diamond can move a little bit so it’s interesting, I can’t wait to see it.”

As for Aidan McDonough, the coach definitely opened the door for his debut tomorrow in Chicago.

“Yeah, he’s got a good shot to play tomorrow,” said Tocchet. “He’s had some good practice for us. We’ll get him in.”

Tocchet also confirmed that Thatcher Demko would be between the pipes for the Canucks and confirmed some injuries, including that Noah Juulsen is week-to-week, Brisebois potentially playing tonight but being day-to-day, and Christian Wolanin is still just day-to-day after going down early in Thursday’s game.

The final thing Tocchet said was that Jack Rathbone will be ready to go if Brisebois can’t.

So, let’s hit it one more time before we get out of here. Tonight’s game is a 4:00 pm start, so sit back, enjoy your second intermission dinner and prepare for the instant analysis, Stanchies and Statsies coming your way over the next 24 hours — here at CanucksArmy.