What do you do after arguably your worst loss of the season? You regroup, refocus, and move on to the next game. Really, it's all you can do.
Oh yeah, and change up pretty much all of the forward lines.
The Vancouver Canucks struggled so badly against the New York Islanders on Thursday that head coach Rick Tocchet felt the need to for how poorly they've played at home. It was a disaster, as the Canucks managed just six shots through the first two periods, only waking up in the third period when it was far too late.
It's no surprise, then, that Tocchet shook up the lines at Friday's practice, with those lines likely to be what Canucks fans see Saturday night against the Chicago Blackhawks. The only line that remained intact was the line of Pius Suter, J.T. Miller, and Jonathan Lekkerimäki — a line that created the opening goal of the game against the Islanders before everything went sideways.
The Canucks' new forward lines will be facing Vancouver's own Connor Bedard in his first game against his hometown team.
Bedard grew up a Canucks fan in North Vancouver and has played two games against the Canucks in Chicago but was injured for the Blackhawks' visit to Vancouver in his rookie season. He'll surely want to play well in his first NHL game at Rogers Arena in front of family and friends.
In fact, Bedard had to buy so many tickets for his family and friends that he quipped, "I'll be paying to play for a night."
Honestly, that makes perfect sense. Bedard is on an entry-level contract that pays $950,000 per season. That pay gets split up over 13 bi-weekly paychecks over the six-and-a-half months of the regular season. That works out to $73,076.92 per paycheck, which works out to $5,219.78 per day. That's before taxes of course.
A single suite would easily wipe out that amount but even enough regular lower bowl tickets could run Bedard over $5200 if he had enough people coming out to the game. I don't think anyone's going to be crying for Bedard, though, given how much money he's likely to earn in his career.
Instead, Bedard is likely to get plenty of cheers from his hometown crowd. Until the puck drops, of course.
Vancouver Canucks projected lines
Three of the Canucks' four forward lines will have a different look on Saturday night, though one will be very familiar to Canucks fans, as Conor Garland, Dakota Joshua, and Teddy Blueger — aka. The Good Job Boys — will be reunited on the third line.
That means breaking up the Canucks' previous third line of Blueger between Danton Heinen and Kiefer Sherwood. That line has been the Canucks' most consistent but had a couple of bad breakdowns in the defensive zone on Thursday night, so it's not too surprising to see them split up.
Here are the projected lines based on Friday's practice, as the Canucks' morning skate on Saturday was optional:
Bumped from the third line, Sherwood will actually move up the lineup, getting an opportunity to play with Elias Pettersson and Jake DeBrusk. Sherwood has shown some confidence with the puck in recent games, even though he's pointless in his last four games. He's got good hands and a heavy shot; it will be interesting to see how he performs in a top-six role.
"Just play my game," said Sherwood, when asked what he needs to do in that role. "Obviously, I'm there for a reason, so just play my game and be simple and predictable and get pucks back for them. They're great playmakers, so if I can get the puck in their hands, it'll be a good night."
Heinen, meanwhile, moves to the fourth line with Aatu Räty and Nils Höglander. Heinen got benched in the third period against the Islanders, playing a total of 13 shifts and getting only 10:27 in ice time.
The Canucks' starting goaltender will be Arturs Silovs, getting his first start since October 30 against the New Jersey Devils, where he gave up 6 goals on 22 shots. Since then, he's played one game in the AHL with the Abbotsford Canucks, where he made 23 saves on 25 shots in a 4-2 win. He also came into the Canucks' game against the Oilers on November 9 in relief of Kevin Lankinen.
Chicago Blackhawks projected lines
The Blackhawks will have a different look as well, with Taylor Hall coming out of the lineup in favour of Ilya Mikheyev, who has been a healthy scratch for the last two games.
That has to be tough to take for the former Hart Trophy winner. Hall has just 2 goals and 6 points in 17 games for the Blackhawks this season but Mikheyev has been even less productive with 1 goal and 2 points in 15 games.
The Blackhawks will also be without Seth Jones on defence, as he suffered a foot injury blocking a shot in their last game against the Seattle Kraken and is going on injured reserve.
Here are the projected lines :
Ryan Donato - Connor Bedard - Philipp Kurashev
Ilya Mikheyev - Nick Foligno - Tyler Bertuzzi
Teuvo Teravainen - Jason Dickinson - Joey Anderson
Patrick Maroon - Lukas Reichel - Craig Smith
Nolan Allan - Alec Martinez
Alex Vlasic - Connor Murphy
Wyatt Kaiser - TJ Brodie
Arvid Soderblom
Petr Mrazek
With no Seth Jones, rookie Nolan Allan draws into the lineup and goes directly onto the top pairing, with veteran Alec Martinez moving to his off-side. We'll see how many minutes Allan actually plays; he's averaged around 13 minutes per game so far this season.
The Blackhawks' starting goaltender will be backup Arvid Soderblom, who has been quite good in his four starts this season. He's carrying a .933 save percentage, as even though he's faced a heavy volume of shots, including 40 shots from the Anaheim Ducks a couple of weeks ago, he's allowed just 9 goals in his four games.
