Canucks look for back to back victories to close out five-game road trip in Music City
The Vancouver Canucks visit Bridgestone Arena for the final stop of a lengthy road trip that started in Edmonton and continued to Philadelphia, Tampa Bay and Sunrise, Florida. The team has split the first four games of the trip after beating Florida 5-3 on Saturday. Here's what you need to know about tonight's contest that faces off at 6:15pm Pacific time:
*The Canucks will skate up front tonight like they did at Sunday's practice in Nashville. That means the top two lines remain intact while Conor Garland moves to the right side with Pius Suter and Dakota Joshua while Nils Höglander draws back in and replaces Jack Studnicka on a line with Sam Lafferty and Anthony Beauvillier. Suter and Beauvillier are both still looking for their first points of the season while Joshua has not hit the scoresheet since scoring on opening night.
*On defense, it appears Rick Tocchet and Adam Foote are going to experiment with a Carson Soucy-Tyler Myers pairing which means Ian Cole and Mark Friedman will play together. Of course, the Canucks will lead heavily once again on Quinn Hughes and Filip Hronek to handle heavy minutes against top competition. It will be interesting to see how the Canucks handle the Preds who are third in the NHL in average shots per game at 34.5. Only once this season has Nashville been held under 30 shots on goal.
*A well-rested Thatcher Demko returns to the net after serving as the back-up on Saturday. Despite carrying a 1-2 record, Demko has been sensational this season stopping 93 of the 100 shots he's faced including 70 of 74 at even strength (94.6%). This is his first game action since a 4-3 loss in Tampa last Thursday.
*Tommy Novak (4) and Colton Sissons (3) have combined for seven of Nashville's 18 goals (38.9%) in the early going. Three of Novak's four goals have come on the power play giving him a share of the league-lead heading into tonight's action.
*Hardly a surprise, Juuse Saros has started every game for the Preds so far this season and as a result has logged more ice time than any other NHL goalie. Saros has led the league in minutes played in each of the past two seasons when he has started 67 and 63 games respectively. Saros is 5-0-1 lifetime against the Canucks. For what it's worth, Kevin Lankinen is the Predators back-up.
*Kiefer Sherwood had a Gordie Howe hattrick on Saturday against the Sharks. That in itself is not remarkable. It is noteworthy, however, that his goal, assist and fight all occurred in one period. More than that, he checked off all three boxes in the first 8:52 of the second period.
*Ryan O'Reilly is playing his 998th career NHL regular season game tonight. Of those, 43 have come against the Canucks and remarkably the veteran centre has scored one goal against Vancouver. The Preds are home to Toronto on Saturday and then in Vancouver next Tuesday. If O'Reilly plays the next two games, he will dress for his 1000th game at Rogers Arena next week.
*All three of last season's meetings between these teams required a shootout. The Preds were 4-3 winners in Vancouver on November 5th. They won 5-4 on home ice on February 21st. And the Canucks posted a 4-3 victory in Nashville on March 6th.
Referees: Wes McCauley and Brandon Schrader
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