Game Preview: Blue Jackets Look For Another Win Out West As Road Trip Continues

VANCOUVER CANUCKS

12–15–2 (26 points; .448%) ROSTER / SCHEDULE

10:00 P.M. – TUESDAY, DECEMBER 14 ROGERS ARENA VANCOUVER, BC, CANADA

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When the Columbus Blue Jackets and Vancouver Canucks face off for the second time in three weeks Tuesday night in British Columbia, the players on the other side will be the same.

The coach, however, will not.

Following an 8-15-2 start — including a 4-2 loss at Nationwide Arena on November 26th —Vancouver fired head coach Travis Green, and immediately hired Bruce Boudreau to replace him. Boudreau is just a dozen shy of 1,000 games as an NHL head coach, most recently spending four seasons behind the bench of the Minnesota Wild until his dismissal during the 2019-20 season.

In the rematch Tuesday, the Blue Jackets will need to allow less shots than in the Black Friday victory against the Canucks. Elvis Merzlikins stopped a season high 39 shots, and Vancouver's 41 shots on goal is the second most they've had this season. Shot quality trumps shot quantity, but Columbus should not want to rely on a recently shaky Merzlikins (or a returning Joonas Korpisalo) for a 40-shot night.

CALESCENT CANUCKS

The hiring of Boudreau has paid off. Vancouver is 4-0-0 since his debut last Monday, with all four wins (two in a shootout) coming over teams that are above .500 on the season. 

They've also all come at home, and Tuesday's game will be the sixth and final game of a long homestand for the Canucks. (In a weird scheduling note, Vancouver is in the midst of a 12-game stretch where they play either at home, or in San Jose against the Sharks.)

J.T. Miller and Conor Garland lead the Canucks pedestrian offense with nine goals each. Miller's 19 assists give him the team lead in points at 28, with defenseman Quinn Hughes behind him at 22 points. Garland is third at 21, Bo Horvat next at 16, and the top five is rounded out with a tie between forwards Elias Pettersson and Brock Boeser, each with 14.

Pettersson, the Canucks 5th overall draft pick from 2017 who had 55 goals in his first two seasons, has just five goals in 29 games this season. The 23-year-old averaged 0.39 goals per game in his first three seasons, but just 0.17 this season. His goal Sunday in a 2-1 win over the Carolina Hurricanes was his first game-winning goal of the season.

STORYLINES

• GO A MAN UP
  No team is worse on the penalty kill than Vancouver, who is at a measly 66.3% on the season. There has been a slight improvement under Boudreau, though the sample size — killing eight of ten penalties — is small. The Blue Jackets have just one power play goal over their last seven games, but haven't had more than two power plays in any of those games and have a total of just 11 during the two-week stretch. Drawing penalties is always a plus, but against a penalty kill like the Canucks have, it's imperative.
   
• ICY HOT 
  At 3.23 per game, Columbus ranks 8th in the NHL in goals. They've scored 16 goals in their last four games, boosting their average from 3.09 before the hot streak started. Before that, though, the Blue Jackets had just six goals in four games. They had a similar bit of streaky play earlier in the season, scoring just 11 times in six games before following that up with 24 in their next six (and five more the game after that). Will Tuesday bring a continuation of the hot streak, or the beginning of another icy one?
   
• KEEP YOUR COMPOSURE 
  Three games ago, the Blue Jackets gave up two goals to the Toronto Maple Leafs just seven seconds apart in a 5-4 loss. Two games ago, they let the Anaheim Ducks score just two minutes after Columbus took a 1-0 lead. The result was an eventual shootout loss. In Seattle, they allowed the Kraken to score three times in the final period to make turn a 4-1 Columbus lead into a game that required overtime before the Blue Jackets lucked out. When this team dips, they tend to spiral. Separate the two, and Columbus will be on the right path.

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