The Vancouver Canucks have Wednesday as a team day off. And that’s a good thing because they’ll need to be well-rested to face the biggest challenge the National Hockey League has these days when they face Nikita Kucherov and the Tampa Bay Lightning on Thursday at Rogers Arena. Kucherov had three goals, two assists, seven shots and 13 shot attempts in Tampa’s 6-2 win in Seattle on Tuesday night. He has 15 points in his last six games. His 41 points in his last 19 games alone are more than any Canuck player has all season.
Since Christmas, the 32-year-old Russian has distanced himself from every other skater in the National Hockey League, racking up a whopping 66 points over his last 30 games. Over a full season, that would put Kucherov on a 180-point pace. The last two players to crest 160 points in an NHL season were Mario Lemieux and Wayne Gretzky. So you get the idea of the kind of roll Tampa’s main man is on these days.
With his five points on Tuesday, Kucherov is now up to 111 points through 62 games and is four points behind Connor McDavid for the overall league lead. Kucherov has 10 more road points than any player in the league this season.
The Kraken tried – unsuccessfully – to slow Kucherov down by hard matching him against their top line of Jordan Eberle, Bobby McMann and Matty Beniers, along with their top defensive pairing of Vince Dunn and Adam Larsson.
So, how will the Canucks game plan to try to keep the league’s hottest scorer in check?
Adam Foote and his coaching staff will likely try to use their last change to get Teddy Blueger and his line with Max Sasson and Linus Karlsson out on the ice to combat Kucherov’s line with Anthony Cirelli and Brandon Hagel. But that will be a massive task, especially for a pair of inexperienced wingers. Elias Pettersson and his line with veterans Jake DeBrusk and Drew O’Connor will likely share some of the matchup duties, too.
Or maybe the Canucks try to go head-to-head with Kucherov by rolling out the team’s hottest line of late with Marco Rossi between Liam Öhgren and Brock Boeser. And then there is the question of how the Canucks plan to deploy their defence in an attempt to neutralize the game’s hottest player. On Tuesday against Florida, the Canucks rolled with veterans Filip Hronek and Marcus Pettersson, each anchoring their own pairs. Hronek skated with Elias Pettersson while M. Pettersson played with Tom Willander.
The Canucks will likely want Hronek on the case as much as possible, but will they trust a young blueliner in Pettersson with the matchup assignment? Or will they, perhaps, explore ways to pair Hronek and Marcus Pettersson together? The problem there is that if the Canucks load up with a focus solely on slowing Kucherov and his line, the Bolts have the depth to roll out a second line featuring Brayden Point, Jake Guentzel, and Gage Goncalves that will certainly create headaches for whichever defenders find themselves on the ice.
Any way you slice it, the Canucks will have their hands full against the second-highest scoring team in the league and the top-scoring team on the road. Ultimately, it may come down to just how well Kevin Lankinen performs. The veteran Finn was sharp against the Panthers on Tuesday and has turned in three quality performances in his last three starts at Winnipeg, against Ottawa and against Florida. And the last time these teams met, Lankinen stopped 12 of 13 first period shots and held down the fort until the Canucks exploded for five third period goals, overcoming a 2-0 deficit en route to a surprising 6-2 win in Tampa Bay.
The Nikita Kucherov experience rolls into town on Thursday. The way he’s playing these days is a sight to behold. And the old hockey adage may apply here – the Canucks may not be able to stop him. They may simply be hoping to contain him.
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