The Vancouver Canucks are giving some players the night off as they prepare to play their final game of the season.
Brock Boeser, J.T. Miller, Filip Hronek, and Ian Cole will all sit tonight as the Canucks face off against the Winnipeg Jets in Game 82, per TSN’s John Lu.
#Canucks Boeser, Miller, Hronek and Cole will sit tonight.
Demko will start vs #NHLJets.@TSN_Edge
— John Lu (@JohnLuTSNWpg) April 18, 2024
Boeser didn’t even fly with the team to Winnipeg, per Irfaan Gaffar.
Noah Juulsen, Mark Friedman, Phil Di Giuseppe, and Nils Åman will all play tonight in their place, per TSN’s Farhan Lalji.
Goalie Thatcher Demko will get the start as he prepares for the postseason after missing more than a month due to injury.
The game doesn’t mean anything for the Canucks, as they’re locked into a first-round playoff series against the Nashville Predators.
The Jets are also reportedly planning to rest plenty of regular players as they prepare for the first-round playoff series against the Colorado Avalanche.
Head coach Rick Tocchet alluded yesterday to the possibility of removing some of his impact players from the lineup.
“It’s more looking at if we play Sunday, day off, we’ve got some guys [who’ve] got some aches and pains, and is it better for them not to play? These are the things we’ve got to go through,” explained the Canucks coach yesterday after practice. “That’s what coaches and management have to do. You have to play all the scenarios, and then you go from there.”
“It’s a hard one because for me. I want to play every game to win, but you’ve got to be prudent [in] how you put your lineup going for the playoffs coming up,” finished Tocchet.
The Canucks will reportedly play Game 1 of their playoff series on Sunday, as the coach suggested. This is a relatively short turnaround time to get back across the country. The extra rest tonight will help some of the players get ready for Game 1.
The puck drops at 5 pm PT tonight for the Canucks game against the Jets.