Canucks tweak their lines after concerning opening night performance
The Vancouver Canucks are shaking up their lineup after a rough opening night loss. They blew a 4-1 lead and lost to the Calgary Flames in overtime 6-5.
The team practiced at UBC today and showed off some new combinations in their bottom-six and defence pairings. The top two forward lines stayed the same.
The forwards went through drills with the following combinations.
Heinen – Miller – Boeser
DeBrusk – Pettersson – Sprong
Suter – Räty – Garland
Höglander – Blueger – Sherwood
Swiss skater Pius Suter practiced on the third-line in the left wing spot. He didn’t play last night as he continues to deal with an upper body injury but seems nearing a return, potentially as soon as tomorrow.
Arshdeep Bains and Nils Aman skated as the extra forwards at practice. They worked themselves into drills but didn’t have a regular line.
Bains was just called up by the team today, but based on the practice lines, it seems unlikely that he will be in the lineup tomorrow night.
The Canucks defence also saw some changes. Head coach Rick Tocchet was clearly not happy with the team allowing six goals last night and he made some changes today.
Hughes – Hronek
Soucy – Myers
Forbort – Juulsen
Vincent Desharnais, who played on a duo with Derek Forbort yesterday that struggled, skated as the extra defenceman. It’s possible that he comes out of the lineup tomorrow in favour of Noah Juulsen, who played 54 games for the Canucks last season.
The good news for the Canucks is that they have a quick chance to avenge this loss as they host the Philadelphia Flyers tomorrow. The puck drops for that game at 7 pm PT.