The Vancouver Canucks took to the ice at Rogers Arena for a quick practice before their afternoon flight to Denver.

Conor Garland was excused from the session to tend to a personal matter, but the winger will accompany the team on its three game road trip which starts Wednesday in the Mile High City.

Nils Höglander was back on the ice with his teammates after getting ejected from Monday’s 3-1 win over San Jose. Höglander was assessed a match penalty late in the second period for his slew foot on Sharks winger Kevin LeBanc. On Tuesday morning, Höglander was fined $2864.58 USD by the National Hockey League.

Following practice, Höglander met the media to discuss the incident.

“I didn’t do it on purpose. Those things happen out there. I think that was a bad play from my side so I take that fine,” Höglander said. “I’m happy I didn’t get suspended from it. I take that fine and hopefully I don’t do that again. It goes so fast out there and you just try to battle. My leg came behind his leg or whatever. I think we did a pretty good job there on the PK. Five minute PK is not fun to play, but we did quite good.”

Pius Suter was seen in the hallway outside the Canucks locker room on Tuesday. However, the smooth centre remains day to day with an undisclosed injury and will not travel with the team on this trip. That means Suter will miss a minimum of seven games. As it stands at the moment, the Canucks have no additional healthy forwards which is hardly ideal for a three-game in four night road trip. Rick Tocchet hinted the club could be putting a call into the Abbotsford farm.

Tocchet and his Canucks will face a Colorado team that is 11-6 on the season, but one that let a late lead getaway last night in a 4-3 loss to Nashville. With no games in the NHL tonight, nothing will impact the individual scoring race which means Wednesday’s contest at Ball Arena will feature seven of the top 17 scorers in the NHL in Quinn Hughes, JT Miller, Elias Pettersson, Cale Makar, Mikko Rantanen, Brock Boeser and Nathan MacKinnon.

“I love these tests going into their building and they’re coming off a loss so they’re going to be ready to play,” he said. “These are things where you have to pass these tests. I said to the coaches that if this was a seven game series, is what we’re doing sustainable? That’s the way you look at it. You build that in October and November. You don’t just all of sudden start in March. It has to start now.”