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ST. LOUIS – The Vancouver Canucks (12-16-3) shoot for back-to-back wins for the first time in more than five weeks when they visit the St. Louis Blues (10-13-4) at Enterprise Center Sunday afternoon. It’s the opener of a three-game road trip that includes visits to Columbus and Nashville.

The Canucks are coming off an impressive 5-3 victory over Nashville Predators on Thursday night. Bo Horvat, Elias Pettersson and Jake Virtanen each had a goal and an assist, while Alex Edler and Loui Eriksson also scored in the win. Jacob Markstrom made 26 saves in goal.

The triumph snapped a four-game losing skid and was the Canucks second win in 14 games (2-10-2). The five-goal outburst marked the first time since a November 8th, 8-5 win in Boston that the Canucks scored five goals in a game. 

With no morning skate prior to the early start, the Canucks line-up has not been confirmed. However, they are expected to go with the same forward lines and defense pairs that produced Thursday’s win over the Predators. That is how they practiced here on Saturday afternoon. That means Tim Schaller, Michael Del Zotto and Alex Biega will likely be healthy scratches. Markstrom is expected to make a second straight start in goal.

Despite the lack of team success recently, Bo Horvat has been remarkably productive. His two points on Thursday give him 16 (six goals and 10 assists) in his last 15 games. Virtanen’s goal snapped a 10-game scoring drought while Eriksson’s goal ended a 12-game stretch without scoring. Pettersson scored on a second period penalty shot and added an assist. His last two multi-point efforts have come in the team’s two victories in the past month. On the season, the rookie has six multi-point games and the Canucks have prevailed in five of those contests.

The Canucks have not won consecutive outings since October 31st against Chicago and November 2 versus Colorado. They have not won consecutive road games since October 13th in Florida and October 16th in Pittsburgh. The Canucks beat Los Angeles 4-2 at Staples Center in their last road outing on November 24th.

The Blues return to action after a 1-0 win in Winnipeg on Friday. Colton Parayko scored the game’s lone goal on a second period power play while Jake Allen made 26 saves for his first shutout of the season. The Blues killed off all six Jets power plays in the game limiting Winnipeg to just four shots with the man advantage.

Allen has started two straight games, four of the last five and seven of the team’s past nine games and is expected to get the call again this afternoon.

With Friday’s victory, the Blues are now 2-1-1 in their past four games, but are 3-6-1 in their last 10. The Blues are 3-4-1 under Craig Berube, who replaced Mike Yeo on November 19th.

Ryan O’Reilly leads the team with 12 goals and 28 points. He is the only member of the Blues in double-digits in goal-scoring so far this season. However, O’Reilly has only one assist in his past four games and has gone five games without a goal. Vladimir Tarasenko is second on the team with nine goals, but has not found the back of the net in the past three games.

David Perron, the team’s third leading scorer with 16 points, found himself on a fifth line in practice on Saturday suggesting he could be a healthy scratch today. He has just one point in his past four games and his 22 penalty minutes are second on the team.

Despite their overall struggles, the Blues boast top-10 special teams with their penalty kill ranked sixth in the NHL while their power play is ninth.

The Blues are banged up and will be without captain Alex Pietrangelo (hand) until after Christmas. They are also missing Jaden Schwartz (upper body), Carl Gunnarsson (upper body) and Robby Fabbri (shoulder).

Today’s game is a battle of two teams at opposite ends of the scheduling spectrum. No team in the league has played more hockey than Vancouver (31 games) this season while no team has played less hockey than St. Louis (27). With today’s game, the Canucks will have played six more road games than the Blues.

St. Louis swept all three games from the Canucks last season outscoring Vancouver 11-5 in the process. Overall, the Blues have won five straight against the Canucks and are 8-0-1 in the last nine in this match-up. Jake Allen is 6-0-2 in his past eight starts against the Canucks including five straight victories.

These teams will meet again on December 20th at Rogers Arena. They will finish their seasons with an April 6th matinee here in St. Louis.

POSSIBLE CANUCKS LINE-UP 
Goldobin-Horvat-Virtanen
Leivo-Pettersson-Boeser
Roussel-Gaudette-Eriksson
Granlund-Beagle-Motte

Edler-Tanev
Hutton-Gudbranson
Pouliot-Stecher
 
Markstrom

POSSIBLE BLUES LINE-UP
Sanford-O’Reilly-Kyrou
Steen-Schenn-Tarasenko
Maroon-Bozek-Thomas
Nolan-Barbashev-Sundqvist

Edmundson-Parayko
Bouwmeester-Bortuzzo
Dunn-Butler

Allen