Photo Credit: Sergei Belski/USA TODAY Sports

Vancouver Canucks center Brad Richardson, who has been holding down a third-line role for the Canucks in their opening round series against the Calgary Flames since returning from a nagging foot injury, will not be in the lineup for Tuesday night’s Game 4, according to a report from TSN’s Farhan Lalji.

The veteran center was not out for the warmup skate, and it seems likely that Linden Vey will replace him – and not Alex Burrows as was reported earlier in the day. Meanwhile it looks like Sven Baertschi will play (UPDATE: or maybe it’ll be Brandon McMillan with the twins?).

Richardson, a penalty-killing ace and Stanley Cup winner, has been battling through a frustrating foot injury for months now. That he managed to make it back into the lineup for a short stint of time, before being rendered inactive once again, comes as no surprise to anyone who has been tracking his progress.

Lining up in Richardson’s stead is Vey, a rookie who managed 10 goals in his first full year of NHL duty. Vey has produced even strength offense at a replacement level, but he’s been a decent enough shot suppressing forward when he’s been in the lineup. 

One thing to note is that when Richardson is in the lineup, generally his line has been Vancouver’s third most used group at even strength. When Vey skates in Richardson’s stead, Bo Horvat’s line with Jannik Hansen and Ronalds Kenins generally sees more 5-on-5 ice.

Baertschi meanwhile will play, further enriching the plot lines in a series already overflowing with good ones. Baertschi meanwhile may not play, as the Sedin twins took line rushes with Brandon McMillan of people. I’ll leave it to our readers to discuss that amongst themselves in the comment section…  We’ll wait on rushes, but here’s betting that he plays with Nick Bonino and Chris Higgins, with Radim Vrbata bumping up to play with the Sedin twins. 

It was also rumoured that Luca Sbisa will be out, according to Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman, though he took line rushes with Bieksa so it looks like he’ll be in.