Hockey
Uphill Battle
The Canucks kick-off the second of a four game home stand that kicked off with a 5-1 loss to Alain Vigneault and the Rangers, which is something they would rather forget.
This is the 2nd of 3 meetings between the Canucks and the Stars this season, that will see the Stars again visit Rogers Arena March 28/2015.
On notes of interest, the Canucks announced that Bo Horvat will be staying with the organization and not returning to Junior, thus putting him out of the World Junior Championship taking place in Toronto and Montreal.
Some might question the timing of notification, but this is set in stone and its not something that NHL Clubs are required to give a month notice.
Horvat (19) made his NHL debut October 4th at Colorado and netted his first NHL goal November 20th against Anaheim.
He also managed to get his 1st multi-point game November 23rd against the Black Hawks which included him winning 13 face-offs.
The Canucks are putting extra pressure on the top line of Daniel, Henrik and Verbata and have combined for a total of 75 points, where Henrik is tied for 11th and Daniel is 15th in League assists overall.
The Canucks are tied for 4th in the league at a success rate of 86.1% on the PK in the 18 road games played to date.
Dallas Coach, Lindy Ruff also expressed comparable concerns about the Stars, who enter Wednesday’s game allowing 3.48 goals per game, which is the most in the League, entering the three-game road trip.
The focus in Vancouver now is finding a better balance between that attacking style without also giving up the odd-man rushes that have plagued them during a season-worst four-game losing streak (0-3-1).
The Canucks had three goals scored on the odd-man rush in the first seven minutes against the Rangers, so are naturally looking at making changes, so there is not a repeat of this.
The Canucks are changing his forward lines against Dallas by going back to the lines he used all season before switching them against the Rangers.
While the Canucks rotate goalies it should be noted that Ryan Miller has given up 18 goals while losing four of his past five starts.
In the other meeting October 21st, Miller was pulled after giving up five (5) goals on 13 shots in only 21:17 minutes of play.
While some might question the start of Lack for this game, Canucks Coach Desjardins said “it was a scheduled start for Lack as per the schedule.”
On the other hand Lack stated “I don’t know what a scheduled start means,” after he managed to bounce back after a 0-3-0 start to go 2-0-2 in his past four starts.
His (Lack) has a .911 SV% is better than Miller’s of .900 SV%.
This will be the second time in eight starts that Lack isn’t playing the second half of back-to-back games and won’t be easy against the Stars top line of Jamie Benn and Tyler Seguin, who leads the NHL in goals (23) and points (38).
The Canucks started strong and pressed the Stars with Higgins and Richardson having a strong start.
The first period saw the Canucks outshoot the Stars 11-5, but the second was a complete reverse where Dallas outshoot the Canucks 17-4.
The key to the success for this game was the stellar play of Kari Lehtonen, who for the first and third faced quality shots from all areas of the ice.