Arturs Silovs makes the biggest start of his young National Hockey League career when he backstops the Canucks tonight against the defending Stanley Cup champions. Silovs faced a good New York Rangers team in his NHL debut last season and was also tested by the league-leading Boston Bruins. But with the Canucks dropping four of their last six and with the Edmonton Oilers closing the gap in the race for top spot in the Pacific Division, the Canucks turn to Silovs who made 20 saves in Arizona in last start, is 2-0 on the season and 5-2 now in his NHL career.

Elias Lindholm was a full participant in a morning skate for the first time in a couple of weeks as he recovers from a wrist injury. He will not play tonight, but his appearance is promising for a return to the line-up soon. He is listed as day to day.

The Canucks are home after a one for three road trip that concluded with a 6-3 loss in Los Angeles on Saturday. Brock Boeser, Dakota Joshua and Teddy Blueger had the Vancouver goals. Boeser is up to 39 on the season while Blueger’s short-handed effort was his first goal in 40 games. 

JT Miller picked up an assist on the Joshua goal and is on a seven-game point streak (2+6=8) but has scored just once in his last six games. He is up to 97 points on the season and is two-shy of his career-best established two seasons ago. Elias Pettersson has points in back to back games, but has gone eight games since scoring twice against Buffalo on March 19th.

Conor Garland is appearing in his 400th NHL game tonight. His next goal will be the 100th of his NHL career.

The Canucks penalty kill has become a sore spot lately allowing two goals against the Kings, two against the Knights last week and seven goals over the past five games. It sits 18th overall in the NHL at 78.5%.

Vegas has been idle since a 7-4 loss in Arizona on Friday night. The Golden Knights will likely still be fuming as they took a 4-1 lead to the third period and surrendered six unanswered goals. Jack Eichel, William Karlsson, Anthony Mantha and Chandler Stephenson scored for the defending Stanley Cup champions.

The loss put an end to a three-game win streak and a seven-game run of points (6-0-1). The Knights are 9-3-1 in their last 13 games. Vegas enters the night sitting in the second Wild Card spot in the Western Conference. However, they are just a point back of the Los Angeles Kings for third spot in the Pacific Division and will leapfrog the Kings with a victory tonight.

Jonathan Marchessault who had a goal and two assists against the Canucks last week at T-Mobile Arena leads the club in goals and points. His 41 goals are a career-high while his 66 points match his two total from two seasons ago – but he’s not likely to reach the 75 points he put up in the Golden Knights inaugural season of 2017-18.

Tomas Hertl, acquired from San Jose at the trade deadline, has been skating with the team for a week after recovering from a knee injury. He is expected to make his Vegas debut tonight on a line with Chandler Stephenson and Michael Amadio.

The Golden Knights have taken two of the first three meetings of the season between these teams including a 4-1 win at Rogers Arena on November 30th. Vegas has not lost in regulation time in 10 visits to Vancouver over seven years in the league going 8-0-2.

Today’s referees: Michael Markovic & Frederic L’Ecuyer

What we heard

Rick Tocchet is encouraged by what he saw from Elias Pettersson on road trip: “I thought there was some really good stuff there. I think he’s coming on. We’re trying to find certain people to go and I thought that line produced and got us some goals. They just have to keep sticking with it. So I thought the road trip he was pretty good actually and I think his game is coming.”

JT Miller on another pre-playoff test against a quality opponent: “Everyone is so structurally sound right now and they’re so dialled in for the playoffs that these teams are ready to pounce off the mistakes, so you can’t have the big ones. Live to fight another day. These are hard-nosed games to play. You can’t get bored. And you can’t crack and get out of character within the team structure and I think you saw a little bit of that on the road trip.”

Tyler Myers on rough spell for Canucks penalty kill: “We know what we have to do. We’ve talked about it. We’ve let a few in here lately. There’s no point in dropping our confidence or anything. It’s systems stuff and making sure we’re talking to each other. There are certain times we’re making switches and need to make sure we’re communicating on the ice. There is no point in freaking out or panicking. We’ve been good with it all year and we know what we have to do and just keep doing it.”