Coming off a huge night in Vegas, the Canucks face a trap game as they roll through the desert into Arizona for a game against the Coyotes.

VANCOUVER CANUCKS (33-28-10) vs ARIZONA COYOTES (22-43-5)

ROGERS ARENA, VANCOUVER, BC

7:00PM PST

TV: SPORTSNET PACIFIC. RADIO: SPORTSNET 650

OPPOSING BLOG: FIVE FOR HOWLING

Well last night was fun, wasn’t it? The Canucks finally beat the house in Vegas, with a 5-1 win that was as impressive as their recent road win over the Colorado Avalanche in terms of both overall quality of play and importance to their season. It certainly changes the perspective of the Sunday night loss a bit, as it goes from a disappointing OT loss to taking three of four points in those two games. Of course none of that will mean a thing if the Canucks fall into the trap that awaits them tonight in Glendale as they play the tail end of a back to back against the Arizona Coyotes.

And yes, while the Coyotes have won just two of their last ten, this is still a trap game, especially if the Canucks want to defy the odds and somehow make it into the playoffs this season. They’d love nothing more than to spoil other teams from possibly having nice things, and with them facing the Canucks tonight and Vegas Saturday, they have an opportunity to do damage to both teams. Remember, this is a team that beat Colorado (and have five of a possible eight points against the Avs this season), Toronto, as well as putting up eight against Ottawa and nine on the Detroit Red Wings last month. They may be the second worst team in the NHL, but it’s the NHL. Take them lightly at your peril.

Last night, the Canucks got great penalty killing, timely power play goals, some rare puck luck and Bubble Demko all working for their first regulation win over Vegas in team history, but with this being a back to back, it’s likely, especially given his workload last night, that they roll with Jaroslav Halak tonight. And we’ll need to see Colorado Halak, as this Coyotes team has shown they can score goals in buckets.

LINEUPS

Courtesy of nhl.com, here’s what tonight’s disasterpiece will resemble. Maybe.

Canucks projected lineup

Tanner Pearson — J.T. Miller — Elias Pettersson

Jason Dickinson — Bo Horvat — Conor Garland

Vasily Podkolzin — Juho Lammikko — Alex Chiasson

Nic Petan — Brad Richardson — William Lockwood

Oliver Ekman-Larsson — Luke Schenn

Travis Dermott — Tyler Myers

Brad Hunt — Kyle Burroughs

Jaroslav Halak

Thatcher Demko

Scratched: Jack Rathbone

Injured: Quinn Hughes (illness), Tucker Poolman (upper body), Brock Boeser (upper body), Matthew Highmore (upper body), Nils Hoglander (lower body)

Coyotes projected lineup

Matias Maccelli — Travis Boyd — Nick Schmaltz

Michael Carcone — Barrett Hayton — Phil Kessel

Jan Jenik — Jay Beagle — Loui Eriksson

Nick Ritchie — Alex Galchenyuk — Andrew Ladd

Shayne Gostisbehere — Dysin Mayo

Cam Dineen — Anton Stralman

Kyle Capobianco — Vladislav Kolyachonok

Harri Sateri

Karel Vejmelka

Scratched: None

Injured: Christian Fischer (lower body), Lawson Crouse (hand), J.J. Moser (upper body), Liam O’Brien (upper body), Antoine Roussel (lower body), Jakob Chychrun (lower body)

It should be noted that Coyotes injury list doesn’t include Clayton Keller, who suffered that horrendous broken leg just over a week ago. They’re pretty banged up, like Loui Eriksson and Jay Beagle on your third line banged up. This will be the first game back in Arizona for OEL and Garland, so there should be tributes on the jumbotron tonight for both of them.

GAME DAY CHATTER

GAME DAY BATTLE HYMN

One of my favoriite Arizona based bands is SACRED REICH, and they’re out on the road right now with SEPULTURA and CROWBAR, but we’re gonna go back to the late 80’s for this version of ‘Death Squad’ recorded live at the Dynamo Festival in The Netherlands.

Enjoy the game, everyone! Go Canucks Go! Slava Ukraini!