Columnist image

| Archive

VANCOUVER -- The Vancouver Canucks (4-3) play their first home game in more than two weeks when they host the Boston Bruins (4-2-1) tonight at Rogers Arena.

The Canucks had their three game win streak snapped with a 4-1 loss in Winnipeg on Thursday at the tail end of a six-game road trip. Bo Horvat’s fourth of the season was the lone Canucks goal. Anders Nilsson stopped 26 shots in his fourth consecutive start. It was the first time this season the Canucks did not score at least three goals in a hockey game.

Horvat has four goals in his past six outings and will have Nikolay Goldobin on his left wing tonight as the Canucks move Sven Baertschi to a line with Adam Gaudette and Jake Virtanen, while Loui Eriksson drops to the right side with Brandon Sutter and Antoine Roussel.

Braintree, Massachusetts native Gaudette will face the Bruins for the first time in his NHL career while former Bruin Tim Schaller will battle the B’s after spending the past two seasons with them.

Former Bruin Eriksson has gone five games without a point and 10 games without a goal. The last time he scored was when he netted a pair against Boston on February 17.

The Canucks have surrendered the opening goal in six straight games, but have yet to trail 2-0 in a contest this season. Despite falling behind, they have held the lead at some point in five of the seven games they’ve played.

Rookie Elias Pettersson skated on his own this morning for the first time since suffering a concussion in Florida last Saturday. It’s another promising step on his road to recovery, but he will not play tonight.

The Bruins are here trying to snap a two-game winless streak after a 5-2 loss in Calgary Wednesday and a 3-2 overtime setback in Edmonton on Thursday. David Pastrnak and David Krejci had the Boston goals against the Oilers. Those losses put an end to a run of four straight victories.

Patrice Bergeron is off to a quick start and sits second in the league in scoring with six goals and seven assists for 13 points while Pastrnak leads the team with eight goals, including a hat trick against Detroit last week. The 2014 first-rounder has scored in five of the Bruins past seven games. Pastrnak starts the day trailing only Auston Matthews in the league goal-scoring department.

Brad Marchand leads the Bruins in assists (10) and penalty minutes (21).

The Bruins will be without blueliner Charlie McAvoy tonight. He has flown back to Boston after telling Bruins medical staff ‘he did not feel right’ after taking a hit in Edmonton on Thursday. The team is already missing Torrey Krug who suffered an ankle injury in the preseason.

Jaroslav Halak will make a second straight start in goal for the B’s. He’s 2-0-1 with a 1.69 GAA and 93.9 save percentage this season.​

These teams will finish their two-game regular season series with a November 8 meeting at TD North Garden in Boston. The teams split their games last season with each team successfully defending home ice.

Canucks probable lines:

Goldobin-Horvat-Boeser
Baertschi-Gaudette-Virtanen
Roussel-Sutter-Eriksson
Schaller-Granlund-Motte
Extra : Leipsic

Edler-Tanev
Hutton-Stecher
Pouliot-Gudbranson
Extra: Del Zotto

Markstrom

Possible Bruins lines:

Marchand-Bergeron-Pastrnak
Heinen-Krejci-DeBrusk
Nordstrom-Backes-Bjork
Wagner-Kuraly-Acciari