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Scenes from morning skate: Demko starts for streaking Canucks vs. Flyers
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Photo credit: © Kyle Ross-Imagn Images
Jeff Paterson
Dec 22, 2025, 12:30 ESTUpdated: Dec 22, 2025, 12:35 EST
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The Vancouver Canucks (15-17-3) are aiming to head into their holiday break on a five-game win streak when they face Rick Tocchet’s Philadelphia Flyers (17-10-7) at Xfinity Mobile Arena. Game time is 4:30 pm PT and is being televised on Amazon Prime.
The Canucks are a perfect four for four on their current road trip, and since the team’s seismic shift when it dealt captain Quinn Hughes to Minnesota on December 12th.

What we know

Based on line rushes, it appears the Canucks will go with the same 18 skaters they used to beat Boston 5-4 in a shootout on Saturday. However, Adam Foote is tweaking a couple of his forward lines. Evander Kane and Conor Garland will swap spots to begin tonight’s game. Despite the win, the line of Garland with Marco Rossi and Brock Boeser struggled on Saturday and was outshot 6-1 and outchanced 5-0 at even strength.
Foote is not making any adjustments to his bottom two lines. Linus Karlsson had a career-high two goals and three points, while Liam Öhgren had a goal, an assist and was the only goal-scorer in a seven-round shootout. Max Sasson opened the scoring as that line combined for all of the Canucks scoring on the night.
Öhgren has a pair of goals and an assist in his past three games. 
After backing up Kevin Lankinen on Saturday, Thatcher Demko returns to the net tonight. He has won his last three starts giving up just two goals in the process.
While forwards Elias Pettersson and Nils Höglander were on the ice with their teammates this morning, it looks like neither will play tonight. For Pettersson this will be eight straight games with an undisclosed injury. Höglander will be sitting out a second straight game after playing five games upon his return to the line-up after ankle surgery.
The Canucks won four in a row early last season, however the team has not won five straight since January 2024 when it rattled off victories to close out a six-game Eastern road trip. That streak also included a sweep of the New York/New Jersey area as the Canucks began this road trek.
The Canucks have posted 11 of their 15 wins this season away from home. In fact, only the New York Rangers, Dallas and Colorado have more road victories this season.

The Opponent

Jackie Spiegel
Jackie Spiegel
@jackiespiegel93
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#Flyers lines at morning skate Zegras-Dvorak-Konecny Barkey-Couturier-Tippett Michkov-Cates-Brink Grundstrom-Abols-Grebenkin York-Sanheim Andrae-Drysdale Seeler-Ristolainen Vladar in the starter's net

Jackie Spiegel
Jackie Spiegel
@jackiespiegel93

#Flyers on the practice for morning skate. All accounted for, including Christian Dvorak and Dan Vladar. They each missed Saturday's game with "a little boo-boo." Aleksei Kolosov is not here, so it looks like he was returned to Lehigh Valley.

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The Flyers are collecting points, but not winning hockey games these days. They are 1-1-4 in their last six outings following a 5-4 shootout loss against the New York Rangers on Saturday. The Flyers held a 4-2 lead halfway through the third period, but could not make it stand up. They lost despite having a pair of 4-on-3 power plays in overtime. Despite their recent struggles, the Flyers enter the night in the first wild card position in the East.
Trevor Zegras scored his team-leading 15th goal of the season on Saturday, while Travis Sanheim, Owen Tippett and one-time Canuck draft pick Rodrigo Abols also scored. Zegras tops the team with 35 points while Travis Konecny is second in scoring with 30. Zegras is also on a career-best seven-game point streak during which he has amassed five goals and nine points.
Sam Ersson has started the last two games in place of an injured Dan Vladar. However, Vladar returns to the Flyers line-up against the Canucks and brings a 12-5-3 record with a 2.41 GAA and .910 save percentage into action tonight.
It appears that former Canuck Noah Juulsen will be a healthy scratch for a fourth straight game.
Along with Vegas and Los Angeles, Philadelphia shares the league lead for games that have required overtime or a shootout. The Flyers have been beyond regulation time 14 times and are 2-4 in OT and have a league-high five shootout victories (5-3). The team has 10 regulation wins and seven in OT/shootout combined.
The Flyers enter the night tied with San Jose for the fewest shots on average per game, generating 25.1 a night. They are fifth in the league in shot prevention, giving up an average of 25.9 per game. Philadelphia is 10-5-4 on home ice this season.

News and notes

The Flyers will start out of the Christmas break on a West Coast road trip that begins in Seattle on December 28th. Rick Tocchet will make his return to Rogers Arena on December 30th. These teams split their two games last season. Philadelphia started its season with a 3-2 shootout victory in Vancouver while the Canucks spoiled the Flyers home opener with a 3-0 win a week later.
The referees for tonight’s game are Furman South and Liam Maaskant. At 31, Maaskant is one of the league’s youngest referees. He made his NHL debut on the final day of last regular season. Maaskant was a defenceman in the Ontario Hockey League from 2011-2015.
Don’t forget to join Rink Wide Vancouver for full postgame coverage after this game – and every game. The livestream starts moments after the final buzzer. Rink Wide is the place for full postgame analysis and discussion. Join the live YouTube chat with your thoughts on the hockey game.
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