The Vancouver Canucks five-game point streak was snapped in ugly fashion on Wednesday night as the team got run out of their own building 6-0 by the New Jersey Devils. Vancouver will now commence on a three-game road trip to California tonight in San Jose in a date with the Sharks.

After Wednesday’s loss, the Canucks are now 4-2-3 on the season, meaning despite losing more games than they’ve won. They’re still on pace for a 100-point season (thankful for the loser point). Their opponents, the San Jose Sharks, are 3-7-2 on the season and last in the Pacific division but have actually won their last three games.

This is the first matchup of the season between these two divisional foes, in last years season series the Canucks won three of four matchups, including a 10-1 win exactly 365 days ago.

Here are two bets I like for tonight’s game.

Recency bias is a heck of a drug, and for Canucks fans, Wednesday’s performance against the Devils has the town in a panic, but I’d like to remind fans that it was just one game; prior to that game, the Canucks gained points in five straight games, including a four-game winning streak during that span.

An x-factor in this game for the Canucks will be their current number-one goalie Kevin Lankinen returning to the crease after a one-game absence. Lankinen has channelled his inner Thacher Demko for the team this season and has been key in all four Canucks wins this season. The Canucks have yet to lose in regulation with Lankinen between the pipes.

Vancouver will need more from their top two centres moving forward. Much has been made about Elias Pettersson’s lack of production, and rightfully so, but JT Miller, despite his production, should not go without fault. His lack of coverage in overtime against Carolina, as well as sloppy puck management on the power-play, has directly correlated to goals against.

I think the Canucks will get back on track here and take care of business against a bottom-feeding Sharks team, despite their recent success.

As mentioned above, recency bias is a hell of a drug and it’s been a tale of two different seasons for the Sharks of late. You couldn’t imagine a worse start to the season for San Jose as not only did they lose their first nine games of the year, first overall pick Macklin Celebrini went down with an injury after an incredible NHL debut.

The Sharks have come alive over the last three games, as players like Fabian Zetterlund, Tyler Toffoli and Jake Walman have completely turned their season around and have been finding the back of the net with ease.

San Jose is a young up and coming team, even without Celebrini in the lineup they have a plethora of young, good exciting players most notably the fourth pick in the 2023 draft Will Smith. Smith shinned in San Joe’s most recent clash against the Blackhawks, scoring his first career NHL goal and also adding another late in the second, which turned out to be the game-winner.

San Jose at +240 against a Canucks team with questions surely is food for thought.

Yes, Elias Pettersson is the classic case of fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. But instead, he’s fooled us for nearly half a year. But this is the perfect game to get him going. Pettersson had seven points in four games against San Jose last year; I would even look at sprinkling at Petterson’s first multi-point game since March, but I will just track the goal here instead.

Hughes absolutely destroyed the Sharks last season scoring 10 points in four matchups, seven of those points were assists. I like this trend to continue tonight as the Canucks will look to seek revenge after their massive loss to the Devils.

I would also look at sprinkling a Hughes power-play tonight at +160, but again, I will only track the assist.

In this section, we will take a look at how we did from the game before and continue to track our progress for the season. For most of my tenure at C,anucksArmy we’ve been well in, the green and our goal this season is for the same again.

This year our units will start at $10, if we go on a bit of a heater we will look to increase them.