The Vancouver Canucks hit the road for a three-game trip through California, beginning with a Thursday night game against the Los Angeles Kings.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Four of the final five games of the Canucks\u2019 season will be on the road, and Thursday\u2019s game begins three games in four nights for them.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Linus Karlsson has three points in his last two\u00a0games and\u00a0has already set career-highs this season with 15 goals, 19 assists, and 34 points. Karlsson has averaged\u00a012:21 of ice time per game this season and\u00a0leads the team with a 53% control of expected goals at five-on-five.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Thursday\u2019s game is the third of the season between the Canucks and\u00a0Kings. These two teams will play again next Tuesday for the Canucks\u2019 final home game of the season.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Quick Hits on the Competition\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Kings are 32-26-19 this season and currently sit one point out of the final wild card spot in the Western Conference.\u00a0<\/p>\n
They are on a two-game winning\u00a0streak and have five games left in the season.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Kings have a 26-6-7 record when scoring the first goal of the game.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Adrian Kempe is leading the Kings with 32 goals and 69 points this season. He is averaging 19:20 of ice time per game and has 209 shots on goal through 76 games.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Drew Doughty leads the Kings in ice time, averaging 23:08 per game.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Joel Armia is one of six players in the league\u00a0with four or more shorthanded goals this season.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Anze Kopitar is in his 20th season with the Kings. He has 12 goals and 24 assists for 36 points in 62 games and has won 57.4% of his faceoffs.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Darcy Kuemper has started 49 games this season and is 19-14-14. He has an .892% save percentage, 2.76 goals-against average, and has three shutouts.<\/p>\n
The Story:\u00a0Tolopilo\u2019s\u00a0Net Control\u00a0<\/p>\n
Nikita Tolopilo said he felt good about his game on Tuesday night but was upset that the team did not pick up the win.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought he was solid,\u201d said Head Coach Adam Foote following Tuesday\u2019s game. \u201cYou can tell he was more square to pucks and in control of his body. He has a good game for us; he gave us a chance.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The 26-year-old netminder is at the top of the depth chart with some injuries above him in the organization. He spoke postgame about getting the opportunity to play in a few NHL games as the season concludes.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery game is an opportunity,\u201d said Tolopilo. \u201cNothing\u2019s\u00a0changed. I try to do my best every day, every game, and show that I can play here.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Canucks\u2019 Top Performers over the Last Five Games\u00a0<\/p>\n
Brock Boeser: 4g-2a-6p\u00a0
Teddy Blueger: 2g-3a-5p\u00a0
Filip Hronek: 0g-5a-5p\u00a0
Jake DeBrusk: 3g-1a-4p\u00a0
Max Sasson: 2g-2a-4p\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
When and Where to Watch\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Thursday\u2019s game is at 7:30 p.m. PT, and you can watch the game on Sportsnet or listen to Brendan Batchelor\u2019s radio call on Sportsnet 650 and the Sportsnet Radio Network.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Vancouver Canucks hit the road for a three-game trip through California, beginning with a Thursday night game…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":548394,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5128],"tags":[894,5,4,893,27,5313],"class_list":{"0":"post-548393","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-vancouver-canucks","8":"tag-canucks","9":"tag-hockey","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-vancouver","12":"tag-vancouver-canucks","13":"tag-vancouvercanucks"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116372141927735833","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548393","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=548393"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548393\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/548394"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=548393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=548393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=548393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}