After a 6-4 win to get back on the right foot for their seven-game road trip, the Vancouver Canucks look ahead to faceoff with a pair of New York teams in games three and four of their trip.
Monday’s game against the New York Rangers is a 4:00 pm PT start.
Tuesday’s game against the New York Islanders is a 4:30 pm PT start.
Up first is the Rangers, who are one of the best teams in the NHL. The Rangers are currently holding onto top spot in the Eastern Conference with a 26-10-2 record. They have a 13-5-0 record on home ice at Madison Square Garden but have struggled of late -- they have a 2-2-1 record over their past five games.
Their team is full of high-end talent, a solid defence corps, veteran scorers and depth down the lineup.
Off the top, the first player who needs to be mentioned first is Artemi Panarin. It’s been another great offensive season for Panarin, he’s picked up 25 goals and added 30 assists for 55 points through 38 games. Panarin’s 25 goals puts him fourth in the league while his 55 points have him sitting in third.
Panarin has been playing on a line with Alexis Lafreniere and Vincent Trocheck. The trio has played 354 minutes of five-on-five together and holds a 20-18 control of the goals scored. They are a line that controls a lot of possession in the offensive zone and has the skill to be able to bury a goal or two every game.
Three defencemen eat up the bulk of the minutes for the Rangers. Adam Fox, K’Andre Miller and captain Jacob Trouba each average 22 minutes of ice time a game and will contribute heavily on both special teams' units. Ryan Lindgren rounds out their top-four as Fox’s partner and then the Rangers' depth on defence is complemented by Erik Gustafsson and Braden Schneider.
Aside from Fox missing 10 games, the Rangers have been extremely healthy on the backend and that has helped their group gain chemistry and be able to defend with consistency in front of their goaltenders.
Regarding goaltenders, Igor Shesterkin is still the leading man in The Big Apple and has started 24 of the Rangers’ 38 games. Shesterkin is spelled off by veteran Jonathan Quick. Both goaltenders have good numbers this season. Shesterkin has a 16-8-0 record with a .908% save percentage while Quick is no slouch as the backup – holding a 9-2-2- record with a .915% save percentage.
This is going to be a matchup of two of the best teams in each of their conferences and after the tough 4-3 loss that the Canucks took to the Rangers back at the end of October, they will certainly be looking for revenge.
Quick Hits on the Competition (Rangers):
- Panarin is not the only player on the Rangers with 20 goals this season. Chris Kreider has picked up 20 as he continues to show that he is one of the league’s best at finding the back of the net.
- The Rangers have three players who are 35 or older on their team. Blake Wheeler, Nick Bonino and Jonathan Quick bring a ton of experience to the lineup.
- There are a few youngsters to watch in this game from the Rangers with William Cuylle, Braden Schneider and Alexis Lafreniere being consistent players in their lineup this season. Each of these three is 22 or under.
- Kaapo Kakko and Filip Chytil are on long-term injury reserve and will not be in the lineup for Monday. Tyler Pitlick is out week-to-week and won’t play on Monday.
After Monday’s game against the Rangers, it’s off to face the other New York team on Tuesday. The Canucks will face their former captain Bo Horvat and the Islanders.
With an 18-11-10 record and a hold of a wild card spot in the Eastern Conference, the Islanders are not a powerhouse team like the Rangers but will still provide a tough challenge as the Canucks are on the second night of back-to-backs. The Islanders will be fresh as they will have not played since Saturday night and we should expect to see Ilya Sorokin in net. Sorokin has made 26 starts this season and has two shutouts on the year to go with his 12-7-8 record.
Mat Barzal is the leading offensive player for the Isles with 11 goals and 29 assists for 40 points in 38 games. Horvat joins Barzal as the two players who have been producing at a point-per-game pace this season. Horvat has 16 goals and 23 assists for 39 points in 38 games and centres the top line with Barzal on his right wing and Anders Lee on the left.
Tuesday’s game will present a matchup between two of the best defencemen in the league. Here in Vancouver, we have Quinn Hughes and over on the island, they have Noah Dobson.
Dobson is fifth in the league for scoring from a defenceman with 38 points in 39 games. He is second to only Drew Doughty in average ice time per game – Dobson averaged 25:53 per game and will be seen on the top pairing alongside Alexander Romanov while also being on the top power play unit and eating up minutes while shorthanded.
Quick Hits on the Competition (Islanders):
- Horvat leads the Islander in power play goals with six.
- 22-year-old Simon Holmström is one to watch while the Islanders are shorthanded. Holmström has five shorthanded goals on the season. That’s tied for first in the league.
- The Islanders have struggled since the break over Christmas, they’ve gone 2-3-1 over their last six games and have been outscored 22-17.
- The Canucks’ power play will have a chance to take this game over. The Islanders have the second-worst penalty kill in the league with a 71.8% kill rate.
As for our Canucks, they have a 9-2-2 record over their last 13 games and have outscored opponents 48-32 through that stretch.
We saw the Lotto Line of Brock Boeser, Elias Pettersson and J.T. Miller come together for a big 6-4 win on Saturday night. The trio combined for four goals and eight points on the night.
Head coach Rick Tocchet called the Lotto Line a shot in the arm for the team but also admitted that he’s not sure how long he will be keeping the trio together.
Elias Pettersson has been finding the back of the net lately. He’s picked up six goals over his last eight games and has four goals in his last three. Pettersson’s three-point night on Saturday has propelled him into 11th place in league scoring.
The line with no name of Dakota Joshua, Conor Garland and Teddy Blueger continues to play excellent hockey. They are spending so much of their time in the offensive zone and are being rewarded for their efforts with goals in nearly every game lately. Garland scored in Saturday night’s game as well as Joshua but his goal was at the end of the game on an empty net.
With the back-to-backs, it’s expected we will see both Thatcher Demko and Casey DeSmith get a start in New York. DeSmith’s last start came on December 28th in a loss to the Philadelphia Flyers. He holds a .914% save percentage on the season and has a 6-3-2 record to go with one shutout.
Back-to-backs are always tough and the Canucks have had a difficult schedule up to this point in the season but securing a pair of big wins in New York would put the league on notice even more than they already are on the Canucks.
Canucks’ Top Performers over the Last Five:
Elias Pettersson: 4g-3a-7p
J.T. Miller: 3g-4a-7p
Quinn Hughes: 1g-6a-7p
Dakota Joshua: 2g-3a-5p
Teddy Blueger: 1g-4a-5p
Monday night’s game against the Rangers is a 4:00 pm PT start.
Tuesday night’s game against the Islanders gives you a bit more time to hustle home from work, it will be a 4:30 pm PT start.
Both games can be viewed on Sportsnet, and you can get the radio broadcast with the best-looking guy in radio, Brendan Batchelor doing the play-by-play on Sportsnet 650 and the Sportsnet radio network.
