During the optional skate, we saw Riley Stillman, Ethan Bear, and Lane Pederson out late, suggesting that they’ll be the healthy scratches tonight. Bear was not present at practice yesterday after missing Sunday night’s game due to personal reasons, but did skate today as an extra. It will be interesting to see if Bear gets in on the second leg of the back-to-back tomorrow.

Collin Delia was the first goaltender off of the ice today, and I feel it’s important that the record shows I beat Thomas Drance to tweet this information out first.

Sure, my tweet had less information in it, but the point got across.

Let’s get to the what was said section of our article.

SCENES FROM MORNING SKATE PRESENTED BY BETWAY

What was said

Bo Horvat talked about getting off on the right foot under Tocchet tonight.

“It’s been great,” Horvat said Tocchet’s first couple days with the team. “We had a good day practice yesterday, a couple good meetings and obviously it’s still new for a lot of people and there’s still a lot of stuff going on lately but yeah, we’re all ready to go tonight and start things [off] on the right foot here.

“I think just obviously being dedicated to our structure,” said Horvat when asked what Tocchet’s message has been so far. “You know, I think there’s a few holes that we have to clean up, and I think if everybody just kind of digs in and does their part and takes a lot of pride in having good structure and in our system then we’re gonna have a lot of success.”

Rick Tocchet is fired up to be behind the Canucks’ bench tonight.

“I’m really excited. Just evaluation and see what you got and just to get the guys in a good frame of mind to have a good game tonight,” said Tocchet. “I think they need to get on the ice to get the anxiety away and have some fun.”

Tocchet also talked about the long video meeting he had with his group today.

“Pretty good practice yesterday we have what four games in six days? It’s been a lot of you know — there’s anxiety. A lot of their heads are spinning. I’ve been in those positions before, so I think nervous energy is better to stay in here. And I don’t like the long meetings, but we had a little bit longer one today but it’s just because of the situation.”

Puck drop is at 7 PM tonight between the Blackhawks and Canucks.