Canucks Game Night: Are you ready for this?

3 years ago  /  The Province Hockey  /  Read Time: 44 seconds

NEXT GAME





Sunday





Toronto Maple Leafs (28-12-4) vs. Vancouver Canucks (16-18-3) 





4 p.m., TV: Sportsnet.





Radio:





Sportsnet 650 AM












FIVE KEYS TO THE GAME





1. Fitness:





This one is simple. The Canucks who suit up Sunday will have had three practices together since COVID-19 first shut things down on March 31. This team won’t be game ready. Advantage Toronto.





2. Lineup bingo:





Most Canucks may be off the COVID-19 protocol list, but what J.T. Miller and Bo Horvat made abundantly clear earlier this week was that many players are still feeling the after-effects of their infection and won’t be close to healthy enough to play, so what this lineup might look like is a pretty big guessing game.





Travis Green said Saturday that 13 forwards and eight defencemen were able to skate on Saturday, but Tyler Motte, Thatcher Demko and Olli Juolevi would not be options to play as they continue to recover from COVID-19. Canucks management also closed practice to the media, in violation of the NHL’s rules, so how they will line up won’t be known until game time Sunday.









3. Bench boss:





Green ran practice on Saturday, and while he was a little hoarse when speaking to the media afterwards, he said he felt much better than he had. Brandon Sutter said Green had the worst COVID-19 bout of any Canuck and the head coach acknowledged it had been a difficult time for him, and made sure to thank the doctors who had treated him. He also urged Canucks fans to remain vigilant over the coming weeks: “Continue to do the right things, don’t let your guard down even if it’s hard. … You don’t want to get it and you don’t want other people to get it.”





4. Star power: 





Auston Matthews and William Nylander appear set to return to the Leafs’ lineup Sunday. Matthews missed Thursday’s game against Winnipeg after taking a hit the game before, while Nylander was on the COVID-19 protocol list. The Leafs are a dangerous team without the duo in the lineup; now they’re back to being among the league’s best, especially with Matthews playing like a possible league MVP this year.





5. Slump busting:





The Leafs come into Sunday having lost three straight games. With two games against the wounded Canucks, they’ll be looking to get themselves back in the win column. The Leafs dominated the Canucks over their first three meetings this season, but the Canucks played two of their best games of the season against Toronto in early March.












PROJECTED LEAFS LINEUP





Forwards





Alex Galchenyuk — Auston Matthews — Mitch Marner





Nick Robertson — John Tavares — William Nylander





Ilya Mikheyev — Alex Kerfoot — Zach Hyman





Joe Thornton — Jason Spezza — Wayne Simmonds





Defence





Morgan Rielly — T.J. Brodie





Jake Muzzin — Justin Holl





Travis Dermott — Zach Bogosian





Goalies:





Jack Campbell, David Rittich












PROJECTED CANUCKS LINEUP





Forwards





Nils Höglander — J.T. Miller — Jimmy Vesey





Tanner Pearson — Bo Horvat — Brock Boeser





Marc Michaelis — Brandon Sutter — Travis Boyd





Antoine Roussel — Tyler Graovac — Jayce Hawryluk





Defence





Alex Edler — Tyler Myers





Quinn Hughes — Travis Hamonic





Ashton Sautner — Brogan Rafferty





Goalies:





Braden Holtby, Mike DiPietro












SPECIAL TEAMS





Maple Leafs:





PP 20.5% (16th) PK 80.8% (11th)





Canucks: 





PP 19.8% (19th) PK 78.6% (15th)





SICK BAY





Maple Leafs:





Freddy Anderson (lower body)





Canucks: 





Elias Pettersson (wrist), Tanner Pearson (ankle)





, Jay Beagle (undisclosed), Justin Bailey (shoulder), Micheal Ferland (post-concussion), Tyler Motte (COVID-19), Thatcher Demko (COVID-19), Olli Juolevi (COVID-19)












STATS PACKAGE





Season series





Maple Leafs (3-2-0) GF 18





Canucks (2-3-0) GF 12





Previous scores





(home team in caps)





Feb. 4: TORONTO 7, Vancouver 3





Feb. 6: TORONTO 5, Vancouver 1





Feb. 8: TORONTO 3, Vancouver 1





Mar. 4: VANCOUVER 3, Toronto 1





Mar. 6: VANCOUVER 4, Toronto 2












TEAM SCORING LEADERS





Leafs vs. Canucks





Mitch Marner 1 6 7 +3





Auston Matthews 5 0 0 +4





Jason Spezza 3 1 4 +4





Morgan Rielly 1 3 4 +4





Canucks vs. Leafs





Brock Boeser 2 4 6 +2





J.T. Miller 2 3 5 -1





Bo Horvat 3 1 4 even





Elias Pettersson 1 2 3 -2












CLICK HERE to report a typo.





Is there more to this story? We’d like to hear from you about this or any other stories you think we should know about. Email vantips@postmedia.com. ...

Read Full Article.