[Hyack]

Buffalo at Vancouver

49

Sabres (24-17-6) at Canucks (21-21-6)

Center Elias Pettersson will miss his fifth straight game for the Canucks with a sprained right knee.

Goalie Thatcher Demko will make his season debut and second NHL start for Vancouver, 1-2-2 in its past five games.

Canucks center Bo Horvat, who has two assists in his past eight games, is two points shy of 200 in the NHL.

Game time 7:00pm PT

[N_Fiddledog]

Crossing my fingers for Demko.

Just don't disgrace us, Kid. We're counting on you for the future.

Do good. Please even.

[N_Fiddledog]

2-1 Vancouver going into the second.

Hang in there Thatch.

[Hyack]

Buffalo opened the scoring followed by goals by Edler, his 5th and Baertschi, his 7th giving the Canucks a 2-1 lead going into the 2nd period. Buffalo tied the score before Boeser scored his 16th, Buffalo scored again to tie the score 3-3 going into the third. Eriksson scored his 9th to give the Canucks the 4-3 win. The Sabres outshot the Canucks 39-23 and were held to 0/2 on the PP while the Canucks went scoreless on their only PP. Sunday has the Detroit Red Wings in town for an afternoon game starting at 1:00pm PT.

[N_Fiddledog]

And Thatcher Demko is the the first star of the game and the first Vancouver goaltender in Canucks' history to win his first 2 starts with the team.

Demko is for real. The future looks a little brighter.

[Strutz]

Demko was quite impressive, especially considering the number of shots Buffalo had, and I'm glad he's getting his chance at last for a regular role on the team.

[Hyack]

Detroit at Vancouver

50

Red Wings (18-24-7) at Canucks (22-21-6)

Vancouver Canucks forward Elias Pettersson could return from a knee injury when they host the Detroit Red Wings at Rogers Arena on Sunday.

Pettersson, who leads the Canucks and all NHL rookies with 42 points (22 goals, 20 assists) in 38 games, has missed five games since spraining his MCL on Jan. 3. He has been skating since Jan. 11 but was a full participant at practice Saturday for the first time since the injury.

Canucks forward Brock Boeser has two goals and one assist in his past three games.

Goldobin, who is fourth in Canucks scoring with 23 points (five goals, 18 assists) in 44 games, will likely be scratched for the third straight game.

Eriksson has four points (two goals, two assists) in his past three games.

Horvat has three assists in his past three games, but has not scored since Dec. 20 (11 games).

Game time 1:00pm PT

[Strutz]

It was good to see Pettersson back with the team today.

Good to see the win over Detroit too!

[N_Fiddledog]

And we just zoomed into a Wild Card space for the playoffs. Nobody expected that but there's still a lot of season left.

[Hyack]

Carolina at Vancouver

51

Hurricanes (23-20-6) at Canucks (23-21-6)

The Canucks face off against the Carolina Hurricanes for their second of two match ups this season. Vancouver is 2-3-0 in their last five games versus the Hurricanes (7-3-0 in their last 10 meetings).

Tonight marks the conclusion of a six-game home stand and the final game the Canucks will play before the All-Star Break/Bye Week. The Canucks are 3-0-2 on the homestand to date.

The Canucks held an optional morning skate Wednesday, one that was fully attended by the Canucks. This is the final game for the Canucks before the NHL All-Star weekend and Vancouver's reading break, and Ben Hutton said a win is a must before taking time off. "We've been playing good hockey on home ice and hopefully we can grab two more points heading into the break."

Elias Pettersson was named to Team Pacific Division for the 2019 NHL All-Star Game. He becomes the youngest Canucks player and just the third Canucks rookie (Tallon, Boeser) named to the honour.

Pettersson leads all rookies in goals (23), assists (21 - tied), points (44), power-play goals (6), power-play assists (7), power-play points (13), game-winning goals (7) and shooting percentage (28.0%; this also ranks second in the NHL (min. 20 GP)). He also leads Canucks skaters in goals, points, points per game (1.13), power-play goals, power-play points, game-winning goals and shooting percentage.

With his seventh GWG Jan. 2 at OTT, Pettersson established a new Canucks single-season record for most GWG scored by a rookie.

With three goals on Jan. 2 at OTT, Pettersson became just the fourth active player to accumulate 40 or more career points within his first 40 NHL games.

With his performance on Jan. 2, he also became the first rookie in Canucks franchise history to score a hat trick that included an OTG. He is the eighth Canucks rookie to net a hat trick.

Pettersson was named the NHL's Rookie of the Month recipient for the month of December after leading all rookies in goals (6), assists (11), points (17), game-winning goals (4) and plus/minus (tied, +8) in 14 games.

Pettersson, who led all rookies with seven goals and 10 points in eight games (7-3-10) in October, was named the NHL's Rookie of the Month for October. He was named the NHL's second star of the week ending November 4th (sharing the League lead with four goals and ranked third overall with seven points in three games) and was named first star of the week ending December 9th (after leading the NHL with eight points (2-6-8) in three games).

Pettersson tied Lars Molin for the second longest rookie point streak in franchise history, going 4-9-13 from Dec. 6-16.

With five points (1-4-5) on Dec. 9 at STL, Pettersson became the sixth rookie since 1967-68 to record multiple outings with at least five points in a single season. He also registered five points (2-3-5) on Nov. 2 vs COL.

Game time 7:30pm PT

[Hyack]

Vancouver at Colorado

52

Canucks (23-22-6) at Avalanche (22-20-8)

The Canucks, 3-1-1 in their past five games after going 1-3-1 in their previous five games, will adjust their lines as well. Nikolay Goldobin, a healthy scratch the past four games and six of the past nine, will replace Markus Granlund at left wing on Vancouver's second line with center Elias Pettersson and right wing Brock Boeser.

Colorado and Vancouver are tied in points for the second wild card into the Stanley Cup Playoffs from the Western Conference; the Avalanche have played one fewer game.

Canucks center Elias Pettersson has three points (one goal, two assists) in two games after missing five games with a sprained knee.

Boeser has six points (two goals, four assists) in his past five games.

Markstrom is 2-1-1 with a 2.45 goals-against average in his past four starts.

Game time 7:00pm PT

[Strutz]

After this 10 day break it'll be great to watch a Canucks game again!

[Strutz]

It turned out to be a great game to watch too.

[N_Fiddledog]

At this point it's worth observing the obvious.

We're a lot further ahead at this point in the season than most thought we would be at the beginning of it.

Benning says his priorities now are shore up the defense, find a right-shooting D and get some backup scoring. The young guys we have like Hutton, Virtanen and Goldobin found another level this season but they need to find another one to get us where we want to be. There's help on the way in the prospect pool but could be years away. So what does Jim do for now? Is next season a priority or do we just have to be patient and wait?

We'll see in the off-season, I guess. Also, the trade deadline is coming up soon.

[Strutz]

True, they are doing better than anticipated at this point. It's great to see some of our 3rd and 4th line players scoring goals and playing well as you can't just rely on what the key players are doing, considering they are the ones that the opposition focus on.

The western conference is very tight point-wise and it will likely come down to the last few games of the season to determine who will make the playoffs, but there is no reason why the Canucks should be considered out of the playoff race if they can keep up the current pace and stay healthy.