Tonight's contest marks the second game of a five-game season series between the Ducks and Canucks. These two teams first met on October 23 at Honda Center, a 4-2 Ducks victory. Andrew Cogliano scored the fastest goal in a Ducks Home Opener at 33 seconds of the opening frame, his third goal of the season. With a goal and an assist, Corey Perry earned his 668th and 669th career NHL points to match Paul Kariya (333g/336a=669 points) for third place on the franchise's all-time scoring list.
The Ducks are 43-37-18 against the Canucks all-time and 12-2-3 in the past 16 contests. In Vancouver, the Ducks have posted a 23-21-5 record vs. the Canucks, including a 7-1-2 record in the past 10. Ryan Getzlaf paces active Ducks skaters in career scoring vs. Vancouver with 41 points (11g/30a) in 44 games. Vancouver, which makes another visit to Honda Center on March 5, will host Anaheim for two additional games this season on December 30 and March 28.
The Ducks are coming off a resounding 2-1 victory over the league-leading Montreal Canadiens two nights ago at Honda Center. Rickard Rakell and Cam Fowler tallied goals for Anaheim, which snapped a three-game losing streak. John Gibson, meanwhile, earned his seventh win of the season, tying his career in saves (39) and shots faced (40). Gibson originally set career highs in both categories on March 1, 2015 at Dallas. Carey Price suffered the loss for the Canadiens, just his second defeat in regulation in 16 games (13-2-1).
Vancouver, meanwhile, has rebounded nicely following a disastrous nine-game losing streak from October 22 - November 7. Since then, the Canucks have gone 6-3-1 including a current two-game winning streak. Sven Baertschi scored the go-ahead goal with 2:35 remaining in regulation to lift the Canucks to a 5-4 victory over the Minnesota Wild at Rogers Arena on Tuesday night. Eleven different players recorded points in the victory, their third win in the past five games.
Bo Horvat enters tonight's contest riding a five-game point streak (3g/4a) and paces the Canucks in scoring with 16 points (8g/8a) in 23 games.
Upcoming milestones for Anaheim include Fowler one power-play goal shy of tying Fredrik Olausson (22) for second on the franchise's all-time PPG list for defensemen, one power-play point from surpassing Olausson (88) for sole possession of third on the franchise's all-time PPP list for defensemen, and one point from surpassing Chris Kunitz (192) for sole possession of 10th on the franchise's all-time scoring list; and Sami Vatanen one point from surpassing Lubomir Visnovsky (108) for sole possession of seventh on the franchise's all-time scoring list for defensemen and one assist from tying Visnovsky (79) and Ruslan Salei (79) for seventh on the franchise's all-time assists list for defensemen.
