Canucks Buzz: Vancouver Hosts St. Louis Blues on Sunday Night

Dec.5, 2010—Vancouver Canucks return to their rink on Sunday to prepare for a match-up against the young and talented St. Louis Blues. The Canucks are coming off of a 3-0 shutout over the Blackhawks in Chicago Friday to extend their current winning streak to 4 games. Tonight, they hope to extend this streak to 5.

The St. Louis Blues, on the other hand, had a strong start to the season. With an off-season aquisition in goal, the Blues found out what it is like to have a true No. 1 goalie like Jaroslav Halak.

Halak has been everything the Blues could have dreamed of, and the team loves him. However, lately, the Blues have run into a bit of a slump offensively, not getting enough from the forwards, and a constant shuffle on their defense core.

The mainstay of the St.Louis attack this season has come from Andy McDonald and David Backes. These two players carry the team night after night. Alex Pietrangelo leads the Blues in offensive output with 14 points. McDonald is questionable today after hitting his head on a play against Edmonton.

Look for the Canucks to dump the puck deep and cycle their way throughout the game to test this young and shallow Blues defense. The fore-checking may win them the game.

It appears the Canucks lineup will look like this tonight:

Daniel Sedin - Henrik Sedin - Alex Burrows

Mason Raymond - Ryan Kesler - Jeff Tambellini

Raffi Torres - Manny Malhotra - Mikael Sammuelsson

Tanner Glass - Joel Parreault - Jannik Hansen

Kevin Bieksa - Alex Edler

Christian Ehrhoff - Dan Hamhuis

Keith Ballard - Andrew Alberts

Roberto Luongo

Cory Schneider