The Vancouver Canucks' centre depth is being severely tested.
The Canucks are already missing Elias Pettersson and Filip Chytil due to injury. Now they've called up Max Sasson under emergency conditions with reports that the flu is hitting the Canucks room and Teddy Blueger might miss Friday's game against the Columbus Blue Jackets.
UPDATE: Well, never mind. After all of that fuss, it turns out that Blueger is good to go against the Blue Jackets and Sasson will not play.
The call-ups from the Abbotsford Canucks have been chipping in lately, with Aatu Räty the latest to score in an excellent performance against his former team, the New York Islanders. Meanwhile, Pius Suter has stepped up in a big way and leads the Canucks in scoring in the month of March with 11 points in 13 games. But this might be too much.
In the span of two weeks, the Canucks' centres could potentially go from Pettersson, Chytil, Suter, and Blueger to Suter, Räty, Nils Åman, and Sasson.
The Canucks have talked about their "next man up" mentality all season but this is the next, next, next man up. And it's coming at the most crucial part of the season, where just one loss could cost them any chance of making the playoffs.
The St. Louis Blues are once again five points up on the Canucks after a third period comeback against the Nashville Predators. The Canucks have two games in hand but even winning both of those games would leave the Canucks one point back. They can't afford to lose and they have to hope the Blues — or the Minnesota Wild — falter.
That's an uncomfortable, desperate place to be.
Can a desperate Canucks team with decimated centre depth beat a similarly desperate Columbus Blue Jackets team that is also trying to stay in the playoff hunt?
"We're playing teams that are desperate too — really desperate," said head coach Rick Tocchet. "You've got to worry about using that word all the time. Desperation is a good thing but sometimes a bad thing where you get out of control. When you say desperation, it's about good changes, a blocked shot, every inch matters."
Vancouver Canucks projected lines
The Canucks held an optional morning skate on Friday, so it's hard to say exactly what their lines will be with the Max Sasson call-up. For the moment, we'll assume that Teddy Blueger is out and that Aatu Räty will step up in his place on the second line but the Canucks could show us some entirely different lines when they take the ice for warm-up.
UPDATE: Haha, just kidding. Blueger will play and the Canucks' lines will remain exactly the same as last game, just with a different goaltender.
Here are the projected lines for the Canucks:
Tocchet has praised Aatu Räty's ability in the faceoff circle but has said the centre has work to do defensively, so it will be interesting to see if he gets a larger role, especially after such a strong game on Long Island.
The Canucks' starting goaltender is expected to be Kevin Lankinen, who sat out the last two games to get some rest, with Arturs Silovs backing up Thatcher Demko instead.
Columbus Blue Jackets projected lines
The Blue Jackets are just two points out of a playoff spot in the Eastern Conference and have at least one game in hand on all of the teams ahead of them in the Wild Card race. A win over the Canucks would tie them with the Montreal Canadiens for the second Wild Card spot, though the Canadiens would have the edge in the tie breaker.
In other words, this is a huge game for the Blue Jackets, who can be expected to come out hot in the first period.
Here are the Blue Jackets' projected lines, courtesy of team reporter Jeff Svoboda:
Dmitri Voronkov - Sean Monahan - Kirill Marchenko
Boone Jenner - Adam Fantilli - Kent Johnson
Cole Sillinger - Justin Danforth - Mathieu Olivier
Zach Aston-Reese - Sean Kuraly - Luke Kunin
Zach Werenski - Dante Fabbro
Ivan Provorov - Damon Severson
Denton Mateychuk - Erik Gudbranson
Elvis Merzlikins
Daniil Tarasov
Like the Canucks, the Blue Jackets' leading scorer is a defenceman, Zach Werenski. He has 20 goals and 69 points in 69 games this season.
Kirill Marchenko leads all Blue Jackets in goals with 26.
The Blue Jackets' starting goaltender is expected to be Elvis Merzlikins, who has an .896 save percentage this season. In his one game against the Canucks this season, he gave up four goals on just 16 shots.
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