Canucks: Games to look forward to in the 2021-22 season
By Joshua Rey
December 18: home vs Toronto Maple Leafs: A 4:00 P.M. on a Saturday start for a game against the Maple Leafs is tradition. The folks back at Toronto don’t want the Leafs to play a late game in Vancouver, it seems. The Leafs don’t have the best record in Vancouver which sits at 12-15-3 per HockeyReference, in 33 games at Rogers Arena. Toronto didn’t win any of their games in Vancouver last season and hopefully the Canucks continue that streak and an angry Steve Dangle video shortly after.
December 19: home vs Arizona Coyotes: The very next night, (at 7:00 P.M.) Oliver Ekman-Larsson and Conor Garland will face their former team for the first time since the draft day trade. Jay Beagle, Antoine Roussel and Loui Eriksson also make their return to Vancouver. Maybe they will get a tribute video or maybe not. If they do, they should use the shot of Eriksson’s face after he scored on his own net in the video. Too harsh? Yeah, too harsh.
December 27: home vs Seattle Kraken: The Kraken will make their first visit to Vancouver. Expect the atmosphere to be a good one and expect to see some fans wearing Kraken jerseys at Rogers Arena. The two teams meet again in Seattle on New Years Day, thankfully at 7:00 P.M.
January 15: away vs Carolina Hurricanes and January 16: vs Washington Capitals: Set your alarms for these games. The game against Carolina starts at 10:00 A.M. and the game against Washington starts at 11:00 A.M. So grab your milk and cereal (or whatever you eat for breakfast.) and be ready to watch the Canucks take on Andrei Svechnikov and the Canes on Saturday and Alex Ovechkin and the Caps on Sunday.
January 23: home vs St. Louis Blues: Ryan O’Reilly and the Blues will faceoff in the first of three meetings against the Canucks. These two teams will play each other for the first time since their six game series in the bubble. Canucks fans love to poke fun at Jordan Binnington and surely they will remind him of that playoff series. That is, if he starts.
January 29: away vs Calgary Flames: Not sure why we have to wait until late January for the Canucks to play the Flames but better late than ever, I guess. This is the first of four meetings. Vancouver and Calgary are without a doubt, big rivals and games between them are usually must watch. The Canucks will hope to get the better of old pals Jacob Markstrom and Chris Tanev at the Saddledome. Maybe Markstrom will try the Dominik Hasek move on Tanner Pearson again but hopefully this time Pearson gets the better of him.