{"id":394709,"date":"2026-01-07T02:30:27","date_gmt":"2026-01-07T02:30:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/394709\/"},"modified":"2026-01-07T02:30:27","modified_gmt":"2026-01-07T02:30:27","slug":"big-defensive-changes-coming-as-the-vancouver-canucks-reset-their-blue-line-vs-the-buffalo-sabres","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/394709\/","title":{"rendered":"Big defensive changes coming as the Vancouver Canucks reset their blue line vs the Buffalo Sabres"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Vancouver<\/p>\n

Photo credit: Fubo<\/p>\n

The Vancouver Canucks will open up their road trip against the Buffalo Sabres, with the club’s projected lineup & starting netminder revealed after the morning skate.<\/p>\n

Forwards Teddy Blueger and Filip Chytil, who haven’t played since October 19th against the Washington Capitals, accompanied the team on the road trip, with both players appearing at the morning skate on Tuesday, albeit in non-contact sweaters.<\/p>\n

“Seeing how he goes through the pushes, sure. And then that probably ups in a week, I guess. But I think it’s really good to see for him. He’s been great for three or four weeks, and for him to go, I think he’ll road trip with us, which I don’t see him playing at the end of it, but you never know, but it’s great for him and our team. He was really playing well for us.” Foote said about Filip Chytil according to Adam Kierszenblat of The Hockey News on Monday.<\/p>\n

When discussing Teddy Blueger, Foote added, “Teddy might meet us halfway through that road trip, but we’ll wait and see.”<\/p>\n

Vancouver Canucks’ projected lineup, starting goalie announced vs Buffalo Sabres<\/p>\n

While Teddy Blueger and Filip Chytil aren’t quite ready to return to game action just yet, it does appear that we’ll see some changes to the Vancouver Canucks’ lineup tonight in Buffalo.<\/p>\n

Vancouver’s forward group is expected to remain the same from Saturday’s loss to the Boston Bruins, with Linus Karlsson staying on the top line with Elias Pettersson and Jake DeBrusk.<\/p>\n

Max Sasson will continue as the team’s second line centerman for now and is set to be flanked by Evander Kane and Brock Boeser, while Drew O’Connor and Kiefer Sherwood will be centered by newly-named Winter Olympian David Kampf on the third line.<\/p>\n

Aatu Raty is expected to stay in the lineup for a third straight game and will center the fourth line, with Liam Ohgren and Nils Hoglander set to be his wingers once again.<\/p>\n

On the blue line is where we’re reportedly going to see some big changes tonight, according to NHL.com, with Marcus Pettersson and Tom Willander slated to be the first pairing, followed by Zeev Buium & Filip Hronek and Pierre-Olivier Joseph & Tyler Myers.<\/p>\n

Coming off his Molson Cup win this morning, Thatcher Demko is set to get his 19th start of the season for the Canucks. The San Diego native has an 8-8-1 record, a 2.66 goals against average, a .906 save percentage and one shutout in 18 games this season.<\/p>\n

Vancouver Canucks Projected Lineup<\/a><\/p>\n

Jake DeBrusk — Elias Pettersson — Linus Karlsson
Evander Kane — Max Sasson — Brock Boeser
Drew O’Connor — David Kampf — Kiefer Sherwood
Liam Ohgren — Aatu Raty — Nils Hoglander<\/p>\n

Marcus Pettersson — Tom Willander
Zeev Buium — Filip Hronek
Pierre-Olivier Joseph — Tyler Myers<\/p>\n

Thatcher Demko
Kevin Lankinen<\/p>\n

Scratched: Elias Pettersson, Arshdeep Bains<\/p>\n

Injured: Conor Garland (upper body), Marco Rossi (lower body), Filip Chytil (concussion protocol), Teddy Blueger (lower body), Derek Forbort (undisclosed)<\/p>\n

Previously on Vancouver Hockey Daily<\/p>\n

POLL<\/p>\n

1 HOUR AGO\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0|\u00a0\u00a0\u00a046 ANSWERS<\/p>\n

Big defensive changes coming as the Vancouver Canucks reset their blue line vs the Buffalo Sabres<\/p>\n

Will the Vancouver Canucks begin their road trip with a win against the Buffalo Sabres tonight?<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photo credit: Fubo The Vancouver Canucks will open up their road trip against the Buffalo Sabres, with the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":394710,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5100],"tags":[1107,229,5133,5,4,1108,27,25899,5692,42703,39194],"class_list":{"0":"post-394709","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-buffalo-sabres","8":"tag-buffalo","9":"tag-buffalo-sabres","10":"tag-buffalosabres","11":"tag-hockey","12":"tag-nhl","13":"tag-sabres","14":"tag-vancouver-canucks","15":"tag-vancouver-canucks-injuries","16":"tag-vancouver-canucks-news","17":"tag-vancouver-canucks-projected-lineup","18":"tag-vancouver-canucks-starting-goaltender"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/115851469356904369","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394709","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=394709"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394709\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/394710"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=394709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=394709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=394709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}