Tonight at 8 p.m. ET, the Vancouver Canucks (3-2-0, six points) and St. Louis Blues (2-2-1, five points) take the ice at the Scottrade Center in St. Louis for the first of three meetings this season. The game can be live streamed here. Vancouver fans can hear all of the action on Team 1040 while St. Louis fans can do the same on KMOX 1120.
Vancouver enters play looking to snap a two-game losing streak after rattling off three straight wins to kick off the season while St. Louis has alternated defeats and victories through its first five games and will look for some consistency.
Ryan Miller returns to a familiar place as he was traded to the Blues late last season and then informed that the team would not offer him a contract after St. Louis blew a 2-0 series lead for the second consecutive year and lost to the Chicago Blackhawks in the opening round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
Miller played in 19 regular season games for the Blues last season and went 10-8-1 with a 2.47 goals-against average and .903 save percentage before going 2-4 in the postseason and taking a lot of the blame for the Blues' shortcomings.
"He knows us," Blues center Patrik Berglund said via NHL.com. "It's obviously going to boost him a little extra. We know he's one of the best goaltenders in the world. We need to have a lot of traffic in front of him so he can't see the shots."
Miller is likely to be opposed by Jake Allen, who won his only start of the season thus far by yielding just one goal on 25 shots.
The Canucks are hoping to tighten up defensively after allowing 10 goals during their two-game losing streak.
"Almost all the goals come off rushes against," coach Willie Desjardins told NHL.com. "In Dallas, we [gave up] a lot of rush goals. For us, we can't give out the odd rushes. We've got to make sure we're coming back into our end doing a good job. ... It's a combination of things. We have to be better all over the ice defensively."
On offense, the Vancouver has been paced by the Sedin twins as Daniel Sedin has a team-high eight points off of one goal and seven assists and Henrik Sedin has two markers and five helpers for seven points. Newcomer Radim Vrbata plays on the top line with the Sedins and has lit the lamp four times while adding two assists to rank third on the team with six points.
St. Louis responds with a unit that has been led by Jaden Schwartz, who leads the team with seven points off of four goals and three assists while Vladimir Tarasenko has five points off of a marker and four helpers and defenseman Kevin Shattenkirk also has five points off of assists.
The Canucks look to stop a two-game skid while the Blues hope to bounce back from their latest loss when the lights come up at the Scottrade Center tonight in St. Louis.
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