On November 21st, the Vancouver Canucks concluded a six-game homestand with a 2-4 record and just got the news that superstar centre JT Miller would be taking a leave of absence from the organization. With a gruelling six-game road trip pending for the team, Canucks faithful simply uttered, “Here we go again.”

But oh, what a difference a few weeks can make. Vancouver continued their winning ways on the road, finishing with an excellent 4-1-1 record. Vancouver will now return home and look to turn things around on home ice as the team is an abysmal 3-5-3 at Rogers Arena this season.

Something will have to give as the Canucks opponent, the Columbus Blue Jackets, is among the worst teams in the league on the road, holding a 3-8-2 record away from Nationwide Arena.

Here are some relevant game notes, as well as our best bet of the day.

How can you talk about the Canucks road trip and not mention how well the Canucks top line played, mainly Jake DeBrusk and Elias Pettersson. DeBrusk was brought in to give Pettersson a legitimate top-six option after spending much of the 2023/2024 season with a revolving door of wingers.

Although the duo of DeBrusk and Pettersson struggled out the gate, they have caught fire as of late. Over the last six games, DeBrusk has scored eight goals and 10 points, while Pettersson has tallied nine assists and 10 points.

Kevin Lankinen saw his 10-game road winning streak come to an end on Tuesday night in St. Paul, Minnesota, as the league-leading Wild defeated the Canucks 3-2 in overtime on a very controversial Kirill Kaprizov goal. Despite the losing effort, many in Canucks faithful considered it the team’s best effort on the road trip.

The Canucks thoroughly outplayed the Wild in the final two periods, out-shooting the league’s best team 23-13 – a very impressive feat for a Canucks team missing JT Miller and Fillip Hronek.

In other encouraging news for Vancouver, Vezina candidate Thatcher Demko will dress in his first game since Game 1 of the Nashville series, as he’s set to back up Kevin Lankinen tonight.

It’s been a tale of two seasons from the Blue Jackets; as slightly touched upon above, the team, despite being dismal on the road, has been absolutely lights out at home with an 8-3-1 record. The Blue Jackets have had no trouble generating offence this season, ranking third in the league in shots on goal and eighth in goals, but have been horrendous defensively, giving up the third most goals in the league.

A huge bright spot for Columbus this year is the elevated play of their franchise defenceman, Zach Werenski. The Michigan native has always been an upper-echelon top-pairing defenceman but is equating himself with the true elites this season.

Werenski is scoring at an astonishing 89-point pace from the back end, and his 27 points in 25 games rank only behind Quinn Hughes and Cale Maker among defencemen. His excellent start also earned him an invitation to Team USA for the 4 Nations Face-off.

Elvis Merzlikins is projected to get the nod for the Jackets tonight. The Latvian netminder – from the same hometown as Arturs Silovs – has struggled this year, posting a sub .900 save percentage (S%) and a goals against average (GAA) over three.

This one is easy for me, and I can feel it from a mile away. Some on Canucks Twitter/X call me the goal scorer whisperer. I recall nearly a year ago to this day on CanucksArmy predicting Brock Boeser would score against Columbus and made a very large bet myself; Boeser responded with three goals in a thrilling Canucks comeback.

Boeser is playing with two of the hottest players in the league, DeBrusk and Pettersson. Boeser hasn’t scored since prior to his concussion six games ago (election night against the Los Angeles Kings). However, he came close as he beat Wild goaltender Filip Gustavsson but could not beat the post in overtime.

The Brockstar is so very due to score and will get one tonight.