Thursday night is going to feature a wildly entertaining hockey game at Rogers Arena as the Vancouver Canucks host the Vegas Golden Knights in an on-ice battle that will determine who sits atop the Pacific Division as we turn the calendar to December.
In their most recent outing, the Canucks played a strong third period and picked up their eighth win on home ice this season, giving them the league’s best home record at 8-1-1. The Knights fell to the Edmonton Oilers on Tuesday night after a late comeback from being down 4-2. The Knights-Oilers game required a shootout but ultimately, the Oilers pulled out the win and the Golden Knights picked up the loser point.
The Golden Knights will be playing their third game in four nights as they ride along with a quick Western Canada road trip. Three games in four nights is a tough ask, and we know that here in Vancouver. The Canucks have had four instances with three games in four nights this season. The Golden Knights will match the Canucks with their fourth three-in-four on Thursday, the Knights currently hold a 1-2-0 this year in the third game of those three-in-four situations and have had even more hockey over this recent road trip with each of their last two games going to overtime.
Vegas will surely be hungry as the Los Angeles Kings are pushing for the top spot in the Pacific after wheeling off five straight wins and the Canucks are now just one point back of the Pacific Division lead. The Golden Knights have lost a bit of their lead in the division after three straight losses and only picked up one win over their last six games.
The Knights will be without two of their top-four defencemen on Thursday as Alex Martinez (lower-body) and Shea Theodore (upper-body) did not travel with the team on this road trip.
With the injuries on their backend, we will see former Canuck Ben Hutton in the lineup for the Knights. Hutton has made a nice little career for himself after leaving Vancouver following the 2018-19 season. He’s played in 209 games with the Kings and Knights and is now a Stanley Cup Champion after Vegas’ march to the championship last year. I know he’s on a division opponent now, but you’ve got to be happy for Hutton.
Each of the Canucks and Knights have seen their records benefit from strong goaltending this season. The Knights lead the league with a .919% save percentage on the backs of their goaltender duo Adin Hill and Logan Thompson.
Hill has been the better of the two and has claimed the role as Vegas’ starter. The Vancouver Island-born netminder didn’t play on Tuesday, so we should expect to see him in net on Thursday. Through 13 starts, Hill holds an impressive .933% save percentage and a 1.96 goals-against average to go with his two shutouts on the year.
It’s set to be one heck of an exhilarating goaltending battle on Thursday night.
Quick hits on the competition
Jack Eichel and William Karlsson lead the way with each forward having 21 points through 23 games.
Karlsson is the leader in goals with 10 on the season. He’s scored seven of those at even-strength, the same amount that Nils Höglander has this year.
Alex Pietrangelo will be the horse on the backend for Vegas. He is averaging 23:55 of ice time this season but has been averaging over 25 minutes a night since their injuries to Theodore and Martinez.
The Golden Knights have the eighth-best penalty kill in the league and are clicking with an 85.7% success rate.
After a two-goal performance on Tuesday night, Brock Boeser is now the sole leader of the league’s goal-scoring race. Boeser is up to 17 goals through 23 games this season.
J.T. Miller picked up a pair of points on Tuesday night and that gives him five points over his last two games. He is currently second in the league to only Nikita Kucherov for points this season.
Quinn Hughes and Filip Hronek are first and third in the league for points from a defenceman.
Though he’s not going to be pushing to challenge Hronek or Hughes for the league lead in points from a defenceman, Tyler Myers has been able to chip in offensively of late. Myers has six points over his last nine games and has nice defensive numbers to go with it. His game has settled down quite a bit lately and he’s only been on the ice for 7 goals at five-on-five over his last 15 games, in which he’s played 260 minutes.
Nils Höglander has four goals and one assist over his last seven games and the duo of Höglander and Sam Lafferty has been excellent this season and is seeing a nice complimentary piece with the addition of Nils Åman to their line.
When Lafferty and Höglander are on the ice together, the Canucks have outscored opponents 12-2 this season. The duo has been excellent at driving the control of the play in their time together.
We are all set for a huge matchup on Thursday night as the top two teams in the Pacific battle in their first matchup of the season. We won’t see these two teams match up until March when they play three games in four weeks against each other.
Thursday’s game is set for 7:00 pm PT at Rogers Arena. You can watch the game on Sportsnet, listen to Brendan Batchelor’s call on Sportsnet 650, or come down to The Rog and watch the battle of the best in the Pacific.
