Some good home cooking is on the horizon as the Vancouver Canucks will play seven of their next eight games on home ice; a run that begins with a Tuesday night affair against the Anaheim Ducks.
The Canucks showed well against divisional rival Seattle on their most recent road trip but fell in their games against the Colorado Avalanche and San Jose Sharks. The team is looking to get back to their winning ways and its first swing will be Tuesday night at Rogers Arena.
Home-ice advantage has been good to the Canucks this season; they hold a 7-1-1 record and with no back-to-backs until mid-December, the team will have time to get on the ice for practice between games and will be able to build on their pillars through some regularity to their practice times.
We’re starting to see the Pacific division get tight at the top. The Los Angeles Kings have wheeled off an 8-1-1 record over their past 10 games and they are now tied with the Canucks for second in the division with 29 points on the year. The Vegas Golden Knights, who will be in town on Thursday, sit atop the division with 30 points.
This will be the first of three matchups this season between the Canucks and Ducks. The teams will not meet again until March.
There are a lot of exciting young players on this Ducks team – led by 21-year-old Mason McTavish. You likely remember McTavish from his ridiculous defensive play on the goal line at the World Juniors.
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McTavish is the leading scorer for the Ducks with 10 goals and 11 assists to make him a point-per-game player with the Ducks. He plays alongside Frank Vatrano and Ryan Strome on the Ducks’ second line and that trio has held a positive ‘control of the goal share’ in their 203 minutes of ice time as a line. They’ve been on the ice for 16 goals for and 10 goals against.
The youngest star on the Ducks is not the 21-year-old as the Ducks also feature 2023 second-overall pick Leo Carlsson on their roster. The team has been taking it slow with Carlsson, who they’ve only played in 14 of their 21 games this season.
Carlsson has six goals and three assists on the season and was not in the lineup for the Ducks on Sunday as they fell to the Edmonton Oilers. The 6’3” Swede is a fun player to watch as he does a great job combining size and skill.
There’s even more young talent on this Ducks team with 20-year-old defenceman Pavel Mintyukov. The 6’2”, left-shot defenceman was the 10th overall pick in the 2022 draft and has played in every game so far in his rookie season. Mintyukov has solid puck skills and is getting time on the Ducks’ top power play unit.
In net, the Ducks continue to roll with John Gibson. He’s started 13 of their 21 games this season and holds a .911% save percentage to go with his 2.69 goals against average.
The Canucks just wrapped up a gruelling 10 games in 17 nights that saw them play three back-to-backs with travel over the stretch. A nice home-cooked meal will be good for the guys as they look to get back to playing Rick Tocchet-style hockey.
One name who was able to shine bright through the difficult part of the schedule was Nils Höglander. He played in nine of the last 10 and was on the ice for five goals scored and only one against at five-on-five. The 22-year-old Höglander leads the way offensively at five-on-five over the past 10 games, he has four goals and one assist in that time and has earned his points from his strong play on the forecheck and in scrums.
Young Höglander is now tied with Ilya Mikheyev for the team lead in five-on-five goals this season. The two forwards each have seven goals so far this season.
Thatcher Demko continues to be excellent between the pipes for the Canucks. Demko now holds a .925% save percentage on the season and has a 10-5-0 record – including a 7-1-0 record on home ice that’s seen him put up a .943% save percentage with a 1.67 GAA.
Quick Hits:
- Frank Vatrano leads the Ducks in goals this season with 13. Five of those goals came on the power play.
- We will see a lot of Cam Fowler on Tuesday evening. He leads the Ducks with an average ice time of 23:41.
- Radko Gudas leads the physicality for the Ducks. The Swedish defenceman has 58 hits in 21 games this season.
- J.T. Miller has 25 points over his last 16 games.
- After a two-goal performance in San Jose on Saturday, Brock Boeser is tied with Nikita Kucherov for the league lead in goals with 15.
Rick Tocchet confirmed that Andrei Kuzmenko would be back in the lineup for Tuesday’s game. Kuzmenko skated on a line with Elias Pettersson and Ilya Mikheyev at Monday afternoon’s practice.
Puck drop against the Ducks is scheduled for 7:00 pm PT on Tuesday night. You can watch the game on Sportsnet, listen to it on Sportsnet 650 or come on down to Rogers Arena and enjoy it live!
