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Scenes from morning skate: Tolopilo makes third straight start for Canucks vs. Golden Knights
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Photo credit: © Bob Frid-Imagn Images
Jeff Paterson
Apr 7, 2026, 14:48 EDT
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The Vancouver Canucks (22-46-8) host the Vegas Golden Knights (35-26-16) at Rogers Arena. The game is set for a 7 pm PT puck drop.
Tonight will be the 20th and final time this season the Canucks wear their alternate black skate jersey. The team is 4-13-2 in those uniforms, while the club is remarkably similar, 4-13-3 in its primary blue uniforms.

What we saw

With Kevin Lankinen nursing an upper-body injury and out for a second straight game, Nikita Tolopilo will make a third consecutive start for the first time in his NHL career. He allowed six goals on 23 shots in a 7-4 loss to the Utah Mammoth on Saturday. Tolopilo has dropped his past four decisions. Former Golden Knight Jiri Patera will back up once again.
Evander Kane will sit out for the third time in the past four outings. And Abbotsford call-up Ty Mueller will be a healthy scratch after appearing in the past two games. That means Curtis Douglas returns to the lineup after being scratched on Saturday.
Filip Hronek, who took a maintenance day and was excused from practice on Monday, will play tonight. P-O Joseph will come out of the lineup to make room for Elias Pettersson on defence.
Jake DeBrusk is red-hot with goals in three straight games, four in his last five and five in seven – all on the power play. With Saturday’s goal early in the third period, the veteran winger has scored 16 of his 19 goals on the season with the man-advantage. Only two players in the league have more.
As a team, the Canucks are 11 for their last 27 (40.7%) over the past 10 games. That is second in the NHL behind only Carolina (41.9%) since March 16th.
The Canucks have dropped five straight in regulation on home ice for the first time all season. Overall, the team has lost eight of its last nine games. 

The Opponent

The Golden Knights improved to 3-0 under interim head coach John Tortorella with a 5-1 win in Edmonton on Saturday night. Brett Howden, Colton Sissons, Jeremy Lauzon, Mark Stone and Rasmus Andersson scored the Vegas goals while Carter Hart stopped 31 of the 32 shots he faced. Hart is now 2-0 and has allowed four goals after missing three months and 33 games with a lower-body injury.
Lauzon’s goal midway through the second period snapped the veteran defenceman’s 112-game scoring drought dating back to February of 2024.
Jack Eichel set up three goals on Saturday to boost his team-leading point total to 82 on the season. That matches the second-best total of his career behind only the 94 points he registered last season. Eichel is one of six Knights skaters with 20 goals and 50 points this season. Pavel Dorofeyev leads the team with 35 goals, matching his career high established last season.
Vegas has points in five straight games (3-0-2) and just one outright loss in its last seven contests (4-1-2). The Knights sit third in the Pacific Division, but just a single point behind both Anaheim and Edmonton. All three teams have five games remaining.
The Golden Knights are 26-0-5 this season when scoring four or more goals.
Defencemen are heating up for Vegas, contributing seven goals and 19 points in the past seven games. Rasmus Andersson has four goals and six points, while Shea Theodore has one goal and four helpers. Both players scored against the Canucks last week at T-Mobile Arena.

News and notes

Tonight is the Golden Knights’ lone visit to Vancouver. They have defeated the Canucks twice on home ice this season: 5-2 on February 4th and 4-2 last Monday night in John Tortorella’s coaching debut. Vegas is 10-1-2 all-time in Vancouver.
The referees for tonight’s game are Peter MacDougall and Corey Syvret.

What we heard

Adam Foote on what he wants to see from his team tonight: “Just continue to keep building and going and we’re playing faster. We’re going to be playing against a real hard forechecking team, a heavy team. So we’d like to get back fast and in numbers. We don’t want to play an east-west game, we want to go north. Especially against this group that likes to forecheck.”
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