Vancouver has to get through New Jersey first. The Canucks play the Devils on Saturday afternoon, then fly across the river for a 6:00 PM ET puck drop the next day, so this is the back half of a back-to-back. Saturday's game will settle 2 things for Sunday: whether Vancouver's 2-game losing streak (as of Friday) is still alive, and how hard the Canucks had to lean on their goalie to get through it. New York gets Saturday off at home.
The Canucks are fun to watch and tough to trust. Through 5 games they've scored 6 on Edmonton, 7 more against the Oilers in a 9-7 loss, and 4 on Calgary. Their last recap described them as the league's highest-scoring offense. They've also given up 9 to Edmonton and 7 to Carolina, and the 7-2 loss in Raleigh got away in a hurry: Andrei Svechnikov scored twice on the power play in a 3-goal 1st period, Logan Stankoven added a hat trick, and Kevin Lankinen was pulled after allowing 6 goals on 18 shots. Jake DeBrusk scored both Vancouver goals. That was the second time already this season that Lankinen got the hook, after the Edmonton game.
Thatcher Demko's hip is the root of all of it. He's on injured reserve, and Henrik Sedin's best-case target for his return is before Christmas, so Lankinen is carrying the net for the foreseeable future. Filip Chytil and Jack Thompson are also on IR. So the game comes down to the goalies: a Vancouver team that can score but can't keep the puck out, against a Rangers team that might be missing its own last line of defense. Whoever gets the saves on Sunday probably decides it.