The Vancouver Canucks (35-23-3) kick off a brief two-game homestand against the St. Louis Blues (40-18-4) tonight at Rogers Arena. It's the first meeting between these teams since the Canucks were 4-1 winners in St. Louis on October 23 – in their sixth game of the season.

Eddie Lack makes his third straight start and fourth straight appearance since Ryan Miller's knee injury on Long Island. He and the team will try to bounce back from a disappointing end to a successful road trip in which they fell 6-3 to the Sabres in Buffalo on Thursday to come home with six of a possible 10 points.

The Canucks went 8-6 in 14 games in February. Henrik Sedin led the team with 16 points  (3+13) while Zack Kassian and Shawn Matthias set the pace with seven goals apiece. Matthias set a career-high with his 15th goal of the season in the opening period against the Sabres. Jannik Hansen and Daniel Sedin had the other goals.

Henrik Sedin, with 3+7=10 on a six-game point streak, is sitting at 898 career points. Daniel has 1+7=8 on a six-game streak. Hansen has 1+2=3 on a three-game point streak and has 2+6=8 in his past eight games to move into T-4 in Canucks scoring this season with 26 points.

At the other end of the spectrum, Radim Vrbata has been held off the scoresheet in 6 of his last 7 games (had 1+1=2 at NYI). Chris Higgins has gone five without a point and 14 without a goal. He has one goal in 27 games since Christmas. Linden Vey has gone six without a point and has 2+2=4 in his last 11 games.

Thursday's game was the third time this season the Canucks did not have the chance to operate on the power play (Dec 30th at S-J & January 10th vs CGY). In their past 10 games, the Canucks have had just 15 power play opportunities – they've had three chances in three games and one chance on six other occasions.

The Canucks have won their last three games on home ice (vs PIT, BOS & MIN) and four of their last five dating back to a 3-2 O/T win over Winnipeg on February 3rd. Tonight's game ends a run of 12 games in 12 different cities in 23 days. It also starts a frantic month of March in which the Canucks will play 16 times in the next 31 days.

The Blues are here after a 2-1 win in Edmonton last night. Paul Stastny scored the winner with 5:40 to go in the third period after Dmitri Jaskin had opened the scoring in the first. Brian Elliott made 21 saves for his 20th win of the season. There is a strong chance Jake Allen gets the start tonight.

On the road, St. Louis has won four straight and 9 of its past 10. The Blues boast the fourth best power play in the NHL – and number one on the road – however they are 1 for 13 (7.7%) with the man-advantage in their past seven games and 2 for 19 (10.5%) in the past 10.

With 31 goals, Vladimir Tarasenko is T-4 in NHL and is one of only seven players in the league to crack the 30-goal mark so far this season.

Alex Steen's is celebrating his 31st birthday today. Jay Bouwmeester played his 900th NHL game last night in his hometown of Edmonton. Ken Hitchcock, who coached in his 1300th NHL game in Montreal on Tuesday, needs three wins to join a very select 700-coaching win club – when he gets there he will join Scotty Bowman (1244), Al Arbour (782) and Joel Quenneville(743) – all of whom also coached the Blues.

The Blues were red hot going 12-0-1 in 13 games from January 5 to Feb 3, but have cooled since then posting a record of 6-5 in their last 11 games.

After opening the scoring last night against the Oilers, the Blues are now 28-4-1 when scoring first.