Scenes from morning skate: Lankinen starts, Sherwood into top six for Canucks vs. Blues

The Canucks will be without two of their top three scorers as Conor Garland joins captain Quinn Hughes on the team’s lengthy injured list. Garland, who took a hard hit from Sam Carrick, left after the second period of Tuesday’s 2-0 loss to the New York Rangers. The Canucks were blanked for the first time this season after being shutout on four occasions last season. Four of the last five times the team has gone goalless have happened on home ice.

On Wednesday, the Canucks recalled winger Mackenzie MacEachern from Abbotsford. The 31-year-old has two goals in seven AHL games this season. He has appeared in 123 NHL regular season games all with St. Louis. He also appeared in eight playoff games for Carolina in 2023.

Without Garland (11pts) and Hughes (7 pts), Elias Pettersson is the only Canucks skater with more than six points. He has 3+5=8 through 11 games. Nine of the team’s 28 goals scored this season are currently out of the line-up with injuries. Seven of tonight’s 12 fowards have yet to score a goal for the Canucks this season (Kane, O’Connor, Raty, Reichel, Bains, Karlsson and MacEachern).

With all the injuries, Kiefer Sherwood, who had both Vancouver goals against the Blues earlier this season, is getting bumped into the top six tonight on a line with Lukas Reichel and Evander Kane. Based on this morning’s skate, the Canucks will mixing their defensive pairs with Elias Pettersson playing with Filip Hronek, Marcus Pettersson partnering with rookie Tom Willander while P-O Joseph skates alongside Tyler Myers.

According to Sportsnet’s Dan Murphy, Kevin Lankinen gets the start in goal.

The Opponent

The Blues are sputtering having lost five straight and six of seven. They have allowed 24 goals in their last four outings and 35 goals in their past seven. On Tuesday, they fell 5-2 at home to Detroit. Brayden Schenn and Jordan Kyrou scored the St. Louis goals while Jordan Binnington allowed four goals on 19 shots. 

As a team, the Blues are 31st in the league defensively averaging 4.40 goals against per game. They have surrendered a league-high 30 goals at 5-on-5.

Offensively, St. Louis will be without leading goal-scorer Jake Neighbours for four to six weeks. He was off to a strong start with six goals in eight games before being injured on Saturday. Robert Thomas has also missed the last two games and will miss a third straight game tonight. He has a goal and five assists to start the season.

Among healthy bodies, Jordan Kyrou leads the way with four goals and four assists. He has scored in three straight games and rides an eight-game point streak into action tonight. Jimmy Snuggerud (3+3) and Pavel Buchnevich (2+4) have six points apiece. Former Canuck Pius Suter has three goals and two assists in his first 10 games as a Blue.

Coming off his breakout 26 goal season, winger Dylan Holloway has just one goal so far this season and has gone six games without scoring.

The Blues are 1-4-1 at home this season with their lone win coming against Dallas on October 18th.

With all the team’s issues in the early going, the St. Louis goalies are carrying some frightening numbers. Jordan Binnington has a 3.27 GAA and an .863 save percentage while Joel Hofer has a 5.81 GAA and a .793 save percentage. Binnington appears to be in line to get the start tonight.

News and notes

Snuggerud scored two of three goals on the season against the Canucks earlier this month. These teams will meet again one more time this season on March 21st in St. Louis. 

In the last 13 head to head match-ups, St. Louis is 10-2-1 against Vancouver. Three of the last five games have ended in 4-3 overtime victories for the Blues.

The referees for tonight’s game are Jean Hebert and Pierre Lambert.

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