Game #35
Caps (21-7-6, 48 points) at Vancouver Canucks (19-15-0, 38 points)
The three-game road trip continues with back-to-back contests in Vancouver and Edmonton. Caps get the Canucks first. It is their first appearance in British Columbia since 2006 – a 3-2 shootout loss. Alex Ovechkin had a goal and an assist in that game, which remains his only appearance in Vancouver. The two teams didn’t play at all during Ovechkin’s rookie year in 2005-06.
That lends a good bit of hype to this one in Vancouver. Like the Caps, the Canucks made it to the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs last season. They got off to a slow start this time around (0-3), but have worked their way above .500 now. Vancouver is 3-1 on a current eight-game homestand that doesn’t end until the day after Christmas. But they’ll pay for it. With the Winter Olympics set for GM Place in February the Canucks play 14 straight games on the road – eight before the Olympic break and six more after it. That trip before the break starts in Toronto, winds its way through Florida and then ends in Minnesota. Bad times.
So for now Vancouver will do its best to build a cushion because a team not in a playoff position will struggle to come through either one of those trips in better shape than when it left. Add in the Olympics themselves and you have to wonder what the Canucks would even have left if they made the playoffs. Star goalie Roberto Luongo (Canada), forwards Henrik and Daniel Sedin (Sweden) and Ryan Kesler (USA) and defensemen Sami Salo (Finland) and Christian Ehrhoff (Germany) are mortal locks to make their countries’ Olympic squads. I’d think Alex Edler (Sweden) has a good shot, too. That is a ton of players logging a ton of miles in January and February.
Luongo has actually started 28 games against Washington in his career thanks to his time in Florida. He gave up all five goals last Oct. 13 in a 5-1 Caps win at Verizon Center and was pulled after two periods. Washington was so dominant at the offensive end that the Canucks managed just 10 shots – a franchise-record for a Caps’ opponent. On Oct. 26, 2007, Luongo stopped 26 of 28 shots in a 3-2 Vancouver win at Verizon Center. That loss came early in a 3-14-1 stretch that cost Washington coach Glen Hanlon his job a month later and led to the hiring of Bruce Boudreau.
According to the Caps’ official Web site, every player participated in the morning skate. Jose Theodore will start in goal again. Semyon Varlamov is more likely to return on Wednesday from a groin injury. Defesnemen Mike Green and Shoane Morrisonn – both injured in Tuesday’s win at Colorado – are expected to play. Milan Jurcina and Tyler Sloan would be the scratches in that case.
