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| Vancouver Canucks | 1pm MT / 3pm ET | Colorado Avalanche |
| 0-1-0 | October 3, 2009 | 1-0-0 |
| Pepsi Center | ||
| Denver, CO | |
Here's a sentence I didn't expect to be typing this year. The first-place Avalanche welcome the last-place Vancouver Canucks to the Pepsi Center this afternoon. As you may have heard, the Avalanche stunned the San Jose Sharks on opening night, while the Canucks lost 5-3 to the Flames. In that game, Calgary lead 3-0 after 1 period. The Canucks made it 4-3 in the 3rd but couldn't pull off the comeback. Perhaps they'll be ready to play out of the gate this time?
Today's game is on Altitude and Roger's Sportsnet for you crazy Canadians. I think pretty much all cable and satellite providers are offering a free Center Ice preview right now, so the game should be viewable more or less everywhere (unlike Thursday's opener).
As of this writing, no word on today's line combos, other than that Craig Anderson will be between the pipes. I don't imagine we'll be lucky enough to see Raycroft for the Canucks; figure on that Luongo character. What interests me is the status of Ruslan Salei. The trade rumors for him have already started and he apparently was a healthy scratch on Thursday. However, I think it's mildly interesting that he was in a suit before the game on Thursday while the other healthy scratch, TJ Hensick, was in uniform and warmed up with the team. Perhaps I'm reading far too much into this.
Fun trivia: On this day in 2007, Paul Stastny scored his first NHL hat trick in a 4-3 win over the Dallas Stars.
Canucks vs Avalanche coverage