Quinn Hughes celebrates 24th birthday while red-hot Brock Boeser plays 400th NHL game
It's pretty obvious what Vancouver Canucks captain wants for his 24th birthday -- a repeat performance of Wednesday's season opening 8-1 win over the Edmonton Oilers. Replicating that final scoreline may be asking a little too much, but Hughes would certainly take the same result regardless of the score and a two-game sweep of the season opening series between the two Pacific Division rivals.
The birthday cake will have to wait until after the game, but in the meantime, we offer you a healthy slice of news and notes to help get you ready for tonight's rematch at Rogers Place:
*Hughes played 284 NHL regular season games prior to his 24th birthday. He has racked up 244 career points. That ranks him fourth all time in franchise history in terms of points by players under 24. Trevor Linden leads the way with 388 followed by Pavel Bure who had 312 and Tony Tanti with 302. In terms of defensemen, Hughes stands alone. Rick Lanz is second on the list with 167 points in 325 games.
*Brock Boeser scored a career-best scored four goals in Wednesday's season opener against the Oilers. That was the 399th game of his NHL career. Tonight he reaches the 400 game milestone and it will be interesting to see what Boeser does for an encore. Last season it took Boeser 24 games to notch five goals and the year before it took 22 games. So it's safe to say he's off to the fastest start of his career. Twice he has reached the five goal mark in his 10th game of the season -- as a rookie in 2017-18 and again in the shortened 2020 season.
*Rick Tocchet called today a 'good day' for injured defenseman Carson Soucy. The coach then went on to label Soucy 'day to day'. The big blueliner is on the road trip wtih the group and skated with the team at Rogers Place. The Canucks don't play again until Tuesday in Philadelphia. That may be the target for Soucy to make his Canucks regular season debut.
*After going a forward short on Wednesday, the Canucks will have their full complement of forwards available tonight. Jack Studnicka has been recalled on an emergency basis and will draw in on a fourth line with Sam Lafferty and Nils Höglander. Studnicka had 4+4=8 in 47 games with the Canucks last season. He has gone 24 regular season games without scoring since finding the back of the net in Florida on January 14th. Studnicka appeared in five preseason games for the Canucks but did not record a point.
*Casey DeSmith gets the start tonight, but for some reason the NHL can't get DeSmith's jersey number correct in the official game notes. For the record, he wears number 29 for the Canucks
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