Vancouver Canucks

Elias Pettersson scored twice and had an assist and the Vancouver Canucks stretched their win streak to six games with a 6-2 victory over the Dallas Stars ...

The Vancouver Canucks will be looking to make it seven in a row, facing off against the Ottawa Senators in the second half of their back-to-back on Tuesday.

During that contest, Ottawa gave up five powerplay opportunities to the Kraken, while also being outshot by a wide margin of 29-14. Fortunately, the Senators are also in a very similar situation, coming off of a 4-2 loss at the hands of the Seattle Kraken on Monday night. After securing a convincing 6-2 win over the Dallas Stars on Monday night, the team will be looking to keep the momentum going just 24 hours later, facing off against Brady Tkachuk and the Ottawa Senators on Tuesday night.

Incredibly, the team many assumed was not going to be able to play at the pace required to crawl back into a playoff spot from so far out now suddenly finds ...

And, though Nashville and Dallas have major concerns in generating offence, both of those Central teams also have a leg up on the two wild-card spots. And that opportunity to bury a rival should give the Ducks something to play for. The rival Ducks will have a lot to say about it. Ever since, though, the Canucks are 30-13-8 and with a .667 points percentage that ranks tied with Boston for sixth in the league. • The Canucks are 8-2-2 since the trade deadline and have now won six games in a row. Early on, it looked like they could jump ahead of schedule and hang in the playoff race, but that has sagged badly in the second half -- since Jan. 1, Anaheim's .384 points percentage (13-23-7 record) is 27th in the league. After pulling out a 6-2 win over Dallas on Monday, the Canucks are back at it Tuesday hosting the Ottawa Senators, and those will be another huge two points they'll need to collect. After Sunday, both teams will have just three games remaining (they're currently tied in the first tiebreaker). Could the Lightning gain another couple of points on the Bruins this week? While the Canucks were always kind of/sort of hanging around this race, they have been chasing the whole time, most of it with less than a five per cent chance of making it. They'll still have to leap over Vegas, too, but after a stunning 3-2 loss to New Jersey on home ice Monday night, the Golden Knights are a story for a different reason in this race: they are not resuming control of their destiny after getting a couple more key players back from injury. He has a .912 save percentage on the season with a 13-5-4 record and a positive (2.96) goals saved above average (28th out of 69 goalies). There could have been a race for top spot in the Atlantic Division. The Maple Leafs, sitting second, are 8-1-1 in their past 10 but have actually lost ground to the leading Florida Panthers, who have won 10 in a row.

Firstly, the Vancouver Canucks beat the Dallas Stars in regulation, closing out a “must-win” game in decisive fashion. Secondly, the Vegas Golden Knights lost ...

And so, the focus in Vancouver really should be on that third Pacific Division seed. The answer is exactly as many losses as the Golden Knights take, and exactly one fewer than the Kings (so long as the Canucks stay ahead in the tiebreaker, too.) It really is that simple. If the Canucks can just match the record of the Kings between now and then, they’ll head into that matchup with a chance to move functionally ahead in the standings. The Nashville Predators and Dallas Stars hold down the two Wild Card spots in the Western Conference right now with identical 43-28-5 records, each good for 91 points. The Canucks and Kings meet in the second-to-last game of the regular season on April 28, 2022. That puts them four points ahead of the Canucks, with five games remaining and Vancouver holding a single game in hand. Los Angeles’ remaining games are a bit of a cake-walk; they play Anaheim twice, Chicago once, and Seattle once. Now, the Canucks hold the higher point percentage at .566 with a 38-28-10 record, compared to the Golden Knights’ .565 and 41-31-5 record. But staying ahead of Vegas is only part of the playoff puzzle. It won’t be a slam-dunk. The Canucks have six games remaining. There will, of course, be obstacles.

Well now we've been through the surefire opponents in the potential Oilers playoff opponent series, let's go through some of the less likely candidates.

Allvin then turned around and hired Bruce Boudreau as head coach of the Canucks. This is a surprisingly safe hire as Boudreau’s teams have a history of having great regular seasons and then choking in the playoffs. Vancouver, on the other hand, is the hottest team in the division right now, on a six game winning streak at the time of this writing and only a single point behind Vegas for fourth in the division. There’s only six games left for Vancouver – a possible 12 points up for grabs – so only time will tell if they get into the playoffs at the 11th hour or if their streak is too little too late for this season but provides them hope for next season.