The Vancouver Canucks continue their longest homestand of the season as they host the floundering Montreal Canadiens on Thursday night.
The Pacific Division-leading Canucks (43-18-8, 94 points) will play the fifth game of a nine-game homestand against the Canadiens, who will be without head coach Martin St. Louis.
Montreal announced Saturday, at the start of a five-game Western road trip, that St. Louis was taking a leave of absence for family reasons.
The Canadiens (23-35-12, 62 points) replaced him with assistant coach Trevor Letowski, who will be behind the bench for his third game.
Letowski said he is in constant touch with St. Louis and his plan is to maintain the status quo.
“My role is a bit different,” Letowski said at practice on Tuesday. “There is more motivation. Maybe they are seeing me in a bit different light.
“I am not going to throw anything new in. I am not Marty. So I think some of the messaging might come across differently because we are different individuals.
“I continue to speak with Marty multiple times a day. He’s still involved.”
The Canucks are missing No. 1 goaltender Thatcher Demko, who ranks second in the league with 34 wins this season and has five shutouts.
The 28-year-old San Diego native is expected to miss at least a few more weeks with a knee injury.
Casey DeSmith has been getting the nod with Demko out. Canucks head coach Rick Tocchet said they are not going to rush Demko back.
“We are trying to be prudent with him,” Tocchet said. “We would rather be over cautious.”
Tocchet has also been concerned about the lack of production on the power play. The Canucks scored a second-period, man-advantage goal in their last game, a 3-2 win over Buffalo on Tuesday.
Tocchet wants to change the mindset on the power play and keep the plays simple.
“We have got to get more power-play goals,” he said Tuesday. “The looks are there but we have got to hit the net. We got to start scoring.
“The best power plays do the little things right. There is too much emphasis around here on plays. You look at some of the best power plays. You look at Colorado. They only got two or three plays.”
Elias Pettersson had two goals, including the power-play marker, and an assist in the win over the Sabres.
“It’s a step in the right direction,” Pettersson said about the power play, which had failed to score in four of the previous six games and went 1-for-5 on Tuesday.
“We had looks to score on every chance that we got tonight, so that’s a good thing, and just keep building on it.”
Quinn Hughes and J.T. Miller each had two assists and DeSmith made 15 saves for the Canucks, who won for the first time in three games but are 5-1-1 over their past seven.
Montreal forward Nick Suzuki scored his team-leading 27th goal as the Canadiens erased a two-goal, third-period deficit before dropping a 3-2 decision to Edmonton in overtime on Tuesday.
Kaiden Guhle also scored for Montreal, which is 0-1-2 in its past three games and has just one win in the last six games.
Letowski said he saw some positive signs, especially the way the Canadiens rallied to force overtime and earn a point.
“It is one of the best games we have played all year,” he said. “I am not going to be negative.
“It was a tough way to go down because the players left everything out there on the ice.”
–Field Level Media
