The Canucks are changing the look of their blue line again tonight in New York, and the shakeup comes with the team still trying to stop the bleeding. Vancouver visits the Islanders at UBS Arena with puck drop set for 4:45 pm PT, and there are new pairings both at even strength and on the power play.
Based on this morning’s skate, Elias Pettersson and Zeev Buium look to be swapping roles. Pettersson was paired with Filip Hronek, while Buium skated with Luke Schenn. Jamie Oleksiak, who was a healthy scratch Sunday at Madison Square Garden, appears set to slide back into the lineup and line up with Tom Willander in place of Guillaume Brisebois.
Up front, Vancouver is making one change. Arshdeep Bains is back in after sitting out against the Rangers, with Aatu Räty coming out. Max Sasson is moving from right wing on the fourth line to centre, and Bains is slotting in on the left side.
The special teams got a reset too. Jonathan Lekkerimäki was bumped up to the top power-play unit, while Marco Rossi moved to PP2. Tom Willander was the only defenceman on the second unit, which means Zeev Buium has been pulled off that group for now.
Leevi Meriläinen is expected to get the start in goal. He has already posted one of his three NHL shutouts against the Islanders at UBS Arena, so he owns a 1-0 lifetime mark against New York and has not given up a goal to them.
Since joining the Canucks, Meriläinen has allowed six goals over two starts and four appearances, and only one of those has come at 5-on-5. At that level, he carries a league-best .986 goals against average.
Filip Chytil was back with the team and skating this morning after the shoulder injury he suffered in that unusual collision with a referee in a September 24th preseason game. He remains on injured reserve and won’t play tonight, but he could be in the mix later this week as the road trip continues to Florida.
Vancouver comes in on a four-game losing streak and has dropped all three games to open its six-game road trip. In Sunday’s loss to the Rangers, Jake DeBrusk and Elias Pettersson scored, while Kevin Lankinen stopped 19 of 25 in defeat. DeBrusk has scored three times in his last three games and has had a hand in four of Vancouver’s five goals on the trip.
That slow start has shown up in another ugly trend: the Canucks have not taken a lead into the third period all season, and they’ve been trailing after two periods in six straight games.
There is at least one bright spot in the building where they’re playing. Vancouver has never lost at UBS Arena, going 5-0 there, and it is the only team in the league without a defeat at the Islanders’ new home. The Canucks have also won their last six games on Long Island, including the final game they played at Barclays Center.
The Islanders have been off since Saturday’s 5-3 loss at home to Tampa Bay. Tony DeAngelo, Brayden Schenn and J-G Pageau scored for New York, and Ilya Sorokin stopped 21 of 25 shots. The Isles have opened the season by alternating losses and wins.
Bo Horvat, now a former Canuck captain, has started fast with four goals and six points in five games, and three of those goals have come on the power play. Schenn is second on the team with five points.
Rookie of the year Matthew Schaefer has also hit the ground running with four assists in his first five games. He logged 27:07 on Saturday night. New York’s power play is 4-for-16 overall and has been even sharper at home, where it is 3-for-8 in three games.
The Islanders are still waiting on Mat Barzal, who has missed training camp and the exhibition schedule with knee inflammation. He is skating on his own but has not practiced with the team and has not played this season. New York has also lost defenceman Alexander Romanov for the season after a knee injury against the Rangers last week.
Sorokin enters at 2-2, but his numbers have been excellent: a 1.77 GAA and a .937 save percentage. He is set for his fifth start in six games.
The two teams split their meetings last season, and the road team won both. Vancouver beat the Islanders 4-1 on Long Island just before Christmas, while New York answered with a 4-3 win at Rogers Arena in mid-January.
That loss was the Canucks’ 11th straight, a skid that ended the next game against Washington. The Islanders will return to Vancouver on January 5th.
Jon McIsaac and Alex Lepkowski are tonight’s referees.
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