Both Vancouver Canucks skaters came out on the losing side of their opening games. Elias Pettersson and Team Sweden dropped a close 4-3 game in overtime to Team Canada, while Kevin Lankinen and Team Finland lost 6-1 to Team USA.

One of these teams has to get in the win column today; let’s dive into the Canuck battle this morning:

Coverage for Team Finland vs. Team Sweden kicks off at 10 AM PST / 1 PM EST from the Bell Centre in Montreal.

This game can be streamed on Sportsnet.ca in Canada (subscription required) and TVA Sports (subscription required). Other streaming platforms to watch the game (outside of Canada): ABC & ESPN+.

Here are the projected lines for tonight, provided by Daily Faceoff.

Vancouver Canucks own Kevin Lankinen will get the start for Team Finland, with Juuse Saros serving as the backup.

Filip Gustavsson gets the start for Team Sweden, with Linus Ullmark serving as the backup.

The scoreboard doesn’t tell the true story of how Team Finland’s game against the USA went. Henri Jokiharju opened the scoring for the Finns 7:31 into the game. However, Brady Tkachuk evened up the game less than three minutes later. The game was pretty tight and competitive through the first two periods, that was until Matthew Boldy gave the Americans the lead with less than three minutes to go. Then, everything broke loose, and Team USA scored two goals through the first 30 seconds of the third period and a 6-1 final score.

Finland allowed six unanswered goals. So, there was going to be line changes. Mikael Granlund, who picked up an assist on Finland’s lone goal against the USA, gets a promotion to Patrik Laine’s RW spot on the second line. But undoubtedly, the biggest X-Factor in this game has to be Kevin Lankinen. He will need to be the rock behind what is a porous Finnish defence corps if they want to avoid being eliminated from reaching the finals of the tournament.

Team Sweden did not make any lineup changes. However, in their 4-3 overtime loss, Swedish head coach Sam Hallam made some in-game adjustments, giving William Nylander some run with Pettersson. We’ll see if Hallam goes back to that if his team needs a spark. The third line of Jesper Bratt – Joel Eriksson Ek – Lucas Raymond really seemed to click. All three players found the scoresheet and found chemistry with one another.

However, given the lack of star power for Team Sweden down the middle of the ice, they’re going to need somebody to step up. Why can’t that be Elias Pettersson? Despite not finding the scoresheet, Pettersson played fairly well. He’s paired back up with Filip Forsberg and Adrian Kempe and has the opportunity to take advantage of a weaker defence corps. All the while, getting some fun bragging rights against your NHL teammate.