Vancouver has 1 game before this one, at home against Anaheim, and that result settles whether the Canucks show up in Winnipeg having snapped a 2-game skid or extended it. What won't change is the shape of the season. The Canucks put together the first double-digit losing streak of 2026-27 and have 1 win across their last 13. In fairness, the team says it's improving, and it has a case: 6 of its last 8 losses were by 2 goals or fewer. Their best night of the stretch, a 6-5 win in Anaheim, also showed how loose their own end has been.
For Vancouver, everything comes back to goaltending. Thatcher Demko (hip) is out, and Henrik Sedin is only hoping for a return before Christmas. In the meantime it has been 2 very different goalies. Waiver claim Leevi Merilainen has a .912 save percentage, 12th in the league, and has kept the Canucks in games. Kevin Lankinen is 1-7-0 with an .807 and a 6.17 GAA. Lankinen got the Anaheim start, and Vancouver hasn't said who plays in Winnipeg. That decision probably matters more than anything else about this game.
The injury list is thin up the middle for the visitors too. Filip Chytil (upper body) isn't making the 2-game road trip, Tom Willander is out on the blue line, and Akil Thomas and Mackenzie MacEachern are still on IR. Winnipeg has its own absences in Morrissey, Vladislav Namestnikov and the newly acquired Bjugstad. But the Jets still have Connor, and he just showed in Montreal that he can swing a game by himself in 2 minutes.
Neither of these teams is playing for much in early November. Both are playing to prove the floor isn't the ceiling. Winnipeg has the home ice, the rest and the confidence from that comeback. Vancouver has a goalie who can steal a game, if he's the one in net. Expect a scrappy, low-polish game that's probably close late, because that's how almost every Canucks loss has gone lately.
