Looks like Silovs starts and Lindholm plays for Canucks tonight
The Vancouver Canucks have tipped their hand a bit when it comes to the lineup for tonights game against the Arizona Coyotes. Signs point towards Elias Lindholm returning, as well as Arturs Silovs getting another start in net.
The 23-year-old goalie is 3-0-0 this season and just backstopped the team to a huge win over the Vegas Golden Knights.
“I’ll talk to Clarky…we haven’t made it 100% but looks that way,” said head coach Rick Tocchet about the decision to start the Latvian goalie tonight.
When it comes to the return of Lindholm, the head coach held his cards a bit closer to his chest.
“I’ll talk to him after this skate, but this was kind of the game or the next game, so I’ll see how he feels, and we’ll go from there,” said Tocchet of the Swedish forward.
The centre has not played since March 23, when he scored an empty-net goal against the Calgary Flames.
Lindholm finished this morning’s optional pre-game skate early while Nils Ă…man, Vasily Podkolzin, Noah Juulsen, Mark Friedman, and Casey DeSmith stayed late. That’s usually a good indicator that those players won’t be playing tonight.
This also suggests that Phil Di Giuseppe could be drawing back into the lineup as the Canucks take on another Western Conference foe.
“They’re a sneaky team that scores a lot. Clayton Keller is a dangerous player, [Nick] Schamltz, those guys can score and those guys are very good hockey players,” said Tocchet after this morning’s skate. “They’re a really good rush team. When you play a team that’s really good off the rush, if you’re not focused, they can burn you.”
The Canucks are coming off an emotional win over the Golden Knights but cannot afford to rest on their laurels with the Edmonton Oilers chasing for the Pacific Division title.
“It was a big game for us but we can’t be treating that like anything more than it was,” said J.T. Miller this morning. “We just got two points against a good team. The last four games here we need to do good things and I think it’s going to be a good test for us to see if we can do it again today.”
Tonight’s game starts slightly later than usual with a 7:30 pm PT puck drop.