Vancouver Canucks (11-12-3) vs. San Jose Sharks (8-16-4)
The 2022-23 NHL season continues Wednesday, December 7, with seven games around the league including the Pacific Division showdown between the Vancouver Canucks and San Jose Sharks at SAP Center at San Jose with the puck drop at 10:30 PM ET.
Vancouver and San Jose meet each other for the second time this season, and the Canucks open as slight road favorites with a total of 6.5 goals. Ten days ago, the Canucks outlasted the Sharks 4-3 in overtime as -115 road favorites.
Last Saturday, the Vancouver Canucks snapped a two-game skid with a 3-2 overtime victory to the Arizona Coyotes. A couple of days later, they beat the Montreal Canadiens 7-6 in overtime to close down a four-game homestand on a high note. The Canucks trailed 4-0 at the end of the first period, and midway through the third period, they were up 5-4. It was a wild game, as Montreal took a 6-5 lead before Andrei Kuzmenko scored his 12th goal of the season to force overtime.
“At the end of the day, I don’t care how we did it. We got it done,” Canucks center Bo Horvat said. “Obviously it was not pretty, we made it pretty hard on ourselves. But we showed a lot of resilience t onight and … it was a fun one. Monday night football game.”
#Canucks score five unanswered goals and Elias Pettersson scores in overtime to claim a 7-6 victory over the Canadiens.@BudweiserCanada HIGHLIGHTS | https://t.co/W1i40BhGdU pic.twitter.com/9gYB4SgJCR
— Vancouver Canucks (@Canucks) December 6, 2022
Spencer Martin yielded four goals on just nine shots last Monday, while Collin Delia allowed a pair of goals on 15 shots in relief to grab a victory. Delia replaced Thatcher Demko, who was placed on IR on Monday. Martin is expected to patrol the crease Wednesday in San Jose, and the 27-year-old netminder is 7-2-1 with a 3.37 GAA and .892 save percentage in 2022-23.
The Canucks rank 30th in the NHL in goals against (3.85 per game) and 29th in penalty-killing percentage (68.7%). They’ve allowed 25 power-play goals so far this season. On the other side of the puck, Vancouver is eighth in the league in goals for (3.50 per game), seventh in power-play percentage (25-for-93), and 2 5th in 5-on-5 high-danger scoring chances (45.3%).