Vancouver Canucks Gameday Preview #67: Welcoming In The Two-Time Defending Champion Florida Panthers

The Vancouver Canucks will take part in their fourth game of an eight-game home stand when they face the Florida Panthers later tonight. Both the Canucks and the Panthers’ last matchups came against the Seattle Kraken, with Vancouver losing by a score of 5–2 on Saturday and Florida losing by 6–2 in Seattle the day after.

Today’s matchup falls in Vancouver’s favour for a couple of reasons. First is the fact that the Panthers will be without their top-scorer in Sam Reinhart tonight. The Vancouver local leads his team with 29 goals and 32 assists but did not travel with the team on their current western conference road trip. Second is the fact that the Panthers only had one day between their two games, while the Canucks had two.

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Vancouver’s power play has been fairly cold as of late, as their last goal on the man-advantage came on March 6 thanks to Brock Boeser. To make matters more difficult for their power play, Florida currently sits at seventh in the NHL in penalty kill percentage with 82.2%. If they are unable to convert on the man-advantage tonight, the Canucks’ power play goal drought will increase to five straight games.

Another interesting tidbit about tonight’s game is the fact that Canucks Head Coach Adam Foote could be coaching against his son, Nolan Foote, who is currently with the Panthers. The Florida forward did not play on Sunday but could dress against Vancouver tonight.

Players To Watch:

Kevin Lankinen 

With Canucks Head Coach Adam Foote confirming that Lankinen will start tonight at yesterday’s practice, the goaltender will officially play in his 200th-career NHL game. The goaltender has had a run of rough results recently, having not won a game since January 21 against the Washington Capitals. Despite this, he has not entirely been to blame, as Lankinen has put up impressive efforts as of late — specifically against the Ottawa Senators and Winnipeg Jets.

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Matthew Tkachuk

Since returning to Florida’s lineup on January 19, Tkachuk has played well for the Panthers. He currently has eight goals and 12 assists in 19 games played as well as seven points in his last five games. The forward is also coming off his sixth-career NHL hat trick after a three-goal performance against the Detroit Red Wings on March 6.

Vancouver Canucks (20–38–8): 

Points: 

Elias Pettersson: 13–25–38

Filip Hronek: 7–31–38

Brock Boeser: 16–16–32

Jake DeBrusk: 14–18–32

Evander Kane: 12–16–28

Goaltenders: 

Thatcher Demko: 8–10–1

Kevin Lankinen: 7–21–5

Nikita Tolopilo: 5–6–2

Jiří Patera: 0–1–0

Florida Panthers (33–30–3): 

Points: 

Sam Reinhart: 29–32–61

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Brad Marchand: 27–27–54

Sam Bennett: 24–26–50

Carter Verhaeghe: 19–27–46

Anton Lundell: 17–26–43

Goaltenders: 

Sergei Bobrovsky: 24–19–1

Daniil Tarasov: 9–11–2

Game Information: 

Start time: 7:00 pm PT

Venue: Rogers Arena

Television: Sportsnet

Radio: Sportsnet 650

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