Share this Story: Canucks Game Day: Hansen back in the lineup after scary incident in Flames game
Canucks Game Day: Hansen back in the lineup after scary incident in Flames game
Jim Jamieson
Jannik Hansen has been cleared to play against the Coyotes. (Photo by Jeff Vinnick/NHLI via Getty Images)
Coyotes (11-17-4) at Canucks (19-11-2)
Rogers Arena, 7 p.m.; TV: Sportsnet Pacific; Radio TSN 1040
Five things we learned heading into the Canucks' game with the Coyotes on Monday at Rogers Arena:
Canucks Game Day: Hansen back in the lineup after scary incident in Flames game Back to video
1. Canucks winger Jannik Hansen will play on Monday, after a scary incident during Saturday's 3-2 OT win over Calgary. Hansen collapsed at the bench after taking a hard hit from Flames' defenceman Dennis Wideman. Hansen was rushed to the dressing room and examined by doctors before being taken to hospital, where he spend the night. He was released on Sunday and has been cleared to play.
"It's scary in the moment but I had an idea it wasn't anything with the heart," said Hansen, after participating in an optional skate on Monday morning. "It was basically I couldn't breathe, so I wasn't too worried about that but you go through all the precautions to get checked and double checked and triple checked and get the OK sign."
2. Though Canucks coach Willie Desjardins doesn't name his starting goaltender, it's expected to be Ryan Miller, who didn't participate in the morning skate. Eddie Lack was the only goalie at the optional skate, with just 11 skaters, that included injured winger Zack Kassian and little-used Tom Sestito.
3. The Canucks will have to keep a close watch on Coyotes big centre Martin Hanzal. He scored a natural hat trick on his only three shots of the game in the previous meeting between these two teams – a 5-0 win for Arizona on Nov. 14 at Rogers Arena.
4. The Coyotes, with three wins in their last 14 games (3-8-3) are effectively out of the playoffs already. They used to have trouble scoring but were hard to score on. Now they can't to either. They rank 25th in the NHL on offence and an even worse 28th on defence. Goaltender Mike Smith, who not so long ago was in the Vezina Trophy conversation, has a horrible save percentage of .889. Smith, who's sat the last three games, gets the start.
5. The Canucks lineup is expected to look like this, though in practice on Sunday, Derek Dorsett was on the second line in place of Hansen, who didn't participate.
D.Sedin-H.Sedin-Vrbata
Higgins-Bonino-Hansen
Matthias-Richardson-Vey
Burrows-Horvat-Dorsett
Edler-Tanev
Stanton-Bieksa
Sbisa- Weber