Philly Flys into the Garage - 12/30 7PM - PPV

[Cornuck]

Tonight offers another in a series of exciting high quality* Pay-per-view games of your beloved Canucks

Although Philly hasn't lost in Vancouver through the past 20 years (yes, you read that right), they are faltering on their current road trip with 2 straight losses. Like us, they are currently fifth in their division but have 2 more points. After this game the Canucks travel to the hockey hotbeds of Nashville and Atlanta and enjoy some time away from the frozen north.

Both teams are a having some injury problems right now, so depth will be a factor tonight - although the Flyers may be more hampered.

Canucks : Ryan Johnson (C/LW): Broken finger, late December - IR | Roberto Luongo (G): Groin, sidelined indefinitely - IR | Taylor Pyatt (LW/RW): Broken foot, sidelined indefinitely | Rick Rypien (C/RW): Sports hernia, sidelined indefinitely - IR | Sami Salo (D): Broken rib, late January

Flyers : Daniel Briere (C/RW): Groin, early January | Matt Carle (D): Undisclosed, day-to-day | Josh Gratton (LW): Hand injury, day-to-day | Derian Hatcher (D): Right knee injury, sidelined indefinitely - IR | Mike Rathje (D): Groin, sidelined indefinitely - IR | Kimmo Timonen (D): Right ankle injury, day-to-day | Scottie Upshall (LW/RW): Right knee injury, day-to-day

Keys tonight are stopping the league's best power play (27%) and refraining from taking stupid penalties. Shutting down Jeff Carter will be necessary if we are to break a 20 year hex.

It should be a good game tonight, and I'll go out on a limb and predict a OT win for the Canucks with Wellwood netting the winner.

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GO CANUCKS GO!






*may not actually be high quality

[WpgJets]

With the amount of penalties the Canucks take, I'm willing to bet on a loss when they play one of the best powerplays in the league. Sorry, 'Nucks. 3-1 Philly, Bernier with the goal.

[levelheaded]

With the amount of penalties the Canucks take, I'm willing to bet on a loss when they play one of the best powerplays in the league. Sorry, 'Nucks. 3-1 Philly, Bernier with the goal.

Amazingly, despite the fact that the Flyers have the best PP in the league at 27%, they are 27th overall on the road at 14%. They have 30pp goals in 84 chances at home for a 35.7% conversion rate.

I have no idea how a team can be so bipolar.

Anyways, I expect a good game. Sundin won't be with the team on the ice, but the boost of knowing he's arrived and will lead the cavalry charge shortly should be enough to push a Flyers team reeling from consecutive losses over the edge. I say 3-2 Canucks in OT. Demitra, Ohlund and Burrows will score for us, Carter and Asham for them.

GO CANUCKS GO

[Larry Goodenough]

Some of these Eastern teams are hard to judge as they hardly travel and get to play so many pansies within their conference. Then they head out on a road trip into the West and get beat 8-1 combined by Chi and CBJ.

I guess we'll get a bit of a judgement on the strength of each conference as the Flyers don't have a travel excuse for tonite as they've had 3 days off.

[Mikodat]

Great start ... 1 fight .. 3 huge hits in the first minute .... Burrard Street Bullies:).... oooooops Carter just scored... dammmmmmmm

[levelheaded]

That was a tough loss. We came out hitting, did nothing wrong and played one of our better games of the year yet we still didn't get any points. 7-9-1 now without Luongo. This team needs a prolonged winning streak and fast. The swagger they had mid-November has completely disappeared now.