The Vancouver Canucks are right back at it playing their fourth preseason game in five nights. Tonight, the evaluation process continues as the Canucks are in Calgary to face the Flames.
Not much is known about Rick Tocchet’s plans for tonight’s lineup other than Arturs Silovs is expected to get the start in goal and play two periods while Nikita Tolopilo is likely to play the final 20 minutes in his preseason debut.
With the team flying home from Seattle late last night following a lacklustre 3-1 loss to the Kraken, the Canucks did not hold any sort of morning skate before heading over the Rockies for tonight’s contest. 
Tocchet has a number of fresh bodies in camp that did not play last night that will likely be in uniform tonight. The coach could roll out the Nils Höglander-Aatu Raty-Conor Garland line that showed well in training camp and in Tuesday’s preseason opener.
Daniel Sprong was one of the stars of Wednesday’s 4-3 OT win over the Flames in Abbotsford. He is likely to get back into action tonight. Jonathan Lekkerimaki, Nils Aman, Phil Di Giuseppe were all left behind for last night’s game at Climate Pledge Arena so there is a strong chance they will dress tonight.
However, the Canucks don’t have enough fresh and healthy forwards to ice an entirely different line-up from last night. So there will surely be some overlap as Tocchet has stated he wants to test a number of players in back to back situations. Max Sasson, Sammy Blais and Linus Karlsson have appeared in all three preseason games so far. It’s quite possible they will be given a break tonight to evaluate others.
Of course, JT Miller is available, too. The veteran centre has yet to suit for an exhibition outing. He is skating regularly and was on the ice again Friday morning at UBC, so it seems this is all part of the plan to delay his start to the preseason. Perhaps he sees his first game action of the new season tonight. Then again, maybe not. 
On defence, the Canucks have options and could run with six different blueliners than they used last night. Quinn Hughes, Carson Soucy, Vincent Desharnais, Noah Juulsen, Mark Friedman and Elias Pettersson all sat out last night and are seemingly available if called upon tonight. Christian Wolanin made the trip to Seattle, but was a healthy scratch and could also be inserted into the line-up tonight.
The Canucks still have a handful of prospects in camp that have yet to get into exhibition action. That group includes Tristen Nielsen, Ty Mueller, Akito Hirose and Ty Young.

The opponent

The Flames will dress a better line-up than the one they sent to Abbotsford on Wednesday night. Their group tonight will include NHL veterans Jonathan Huberdeau, Mikael Backlund, Blake Coleman, Yegor Sherangovich, Rasmus Andersson and Mackenzie Weegar. Dan Vladar is expected to get the start in goal.
Game time is 7pm local at the Scotiabank Saddledome in Calgary. It’s a 6pm start Pacific time and tonight’s game — and the remainder of the preseason schedule — will be televised on Sportsnet.
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