Vancouver Canucks will try to save some pride from a roller coaster season when they start their last three game home by hosting Minnesota Wild on Saturday.
Canucks (37-29-13, 87 points) will be looking for a small measure of revenge against Minnesota. They were officially eliminated from the season on Wednesday when the wild (43-30-7, 93 points) beat San Jose Sharks 8-7 in overtime. This is the fourth time in the last five seasons that Canucks has missed the playoffs.
Vancouver returns home after winning two straight road games, including a 4-1 victory on Thursday over Colorado. Avalanche rested its top scorer Nathan MacKinnon.
Canucks started the season as a playoff Caliber team, but the season divided into internal battles that eventually led to their leading goal scorer JT Miller resigning.
On Thursday, their top goal scorer Brock Boeser, who could be a free agent, said it was unlikely that he would be back next season.
The goal Kevin Lankinen stopped 31 shots on Thursday for Canucks, which swept the season from Avalanche for the first time since 2016-17.
“I thought we were playing pretty well,” said ahead Kiefer Sherwood, who got the possible winner in the second period. “We limited their scoring chances, and I thought we were playing a pretty slim game.
“We got many contributions from many guys. It was fantastic game from (Lankinen). It was a good last road game for us.”
Vancouver Head coach Rick Tochet said they want to end the home on a high tone. Sherwood and Conor Garland both have 19 goals in the season and want to reach 20.
“We can’t get into what if or what happened?” Tocchet said on Thursday. “The bet is there. I will try to play some guys in some situations. Some guys can get 20 goals which is nice.”
The Wild enters its last road game of the season after failing to pass a playoffs on Friday when they lost 4-2 to Calgary Flames. They end the regular season on Tuesday by hosting Anaheim.
Yakov Trenin and Gustav Nyquist scored the goals against the flames for Minnesota, who have lost five of their last seven.
The Wild is bound with St. Louis Blues with 93 points for the first joke card in the west. Both teams have two matches left in the season. St. Louis plays in Seattle on Saturday.
Minnesota is back with full strength after getting Kirill Kaprizov and Joel Eriksson Ek back from injuries this week. Kaprizov missed 40 out of 43 matches with an unspecified injury that required surgery in January. Oak missed 21 matches with its injury.
Kaprizov and oak were not a factor against the flames. But they were two nights earlier in their first match back, an exciting shootout with San Jose where Ek did four times and Kaprizov did twice, including the winner.
“Our team got stuck together, sanded, sanded, tried to get points on the road and everyone goes to try their best,” said goalkeeper Marc-Andre Fleury earlier this week.
Fleury came in relief late against Calgary for Starter Filip Gustavsson and stopped all three shots he met.
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