“Since I’ve been here, we haven’t met a team like Florida yet.”

A marathon-relay road trip begins tonight for the Canucks, where a group of Vancouver hockey players will be engaged in playing some of the best teams in the NHL.

They play Tampa Bay Lightning on Thursday; Carolina Hurricanes on Saturday; Washington Capitals on Sunday; and finally, Nashville Predators on Tuesday, January 18.

The team will need endurance, stamina and a great amount competitive spirit. They will face and contend with fighting off adversity, pain, doubt, cramps, negativity, distractions, as they compete in the marathon.

How well the relay team does will depend on the individual contributions of each player and how well they execute the game plan and deal with the personal challenges of participation, some of which were listed above.

“They can throw four lines at you, they can all score and they have superstars,” Canucks Coach Bruce Boudreau told reporters about the Florida Panthers, at a media availability on Monday, January 10.

“The line of Barkov, and Huberdeau and Duclair they can all fly; and their defence are jumping up with the play, if you look at the number of points some of the defenseman have had. It’s crazy.”

Vancouver has lost four of their last five away games to the Panthers. It isn’t unreasonable than to make a prediction that Florida Panthers will defeat the Canucks.

“You just gotta be leery that we can’t get into a track meet with these guys….They want to trade chance for chance and hopefully that’s not the way we’re going to play, or the way we anticipate playing anyway. But we’ll see. ”

“Since I’ve been here we haven’t met a team like Florida yet and it’s going to be an interesting litmus test to see what our guys are made of, especially after not playing for ten days.”

The players have had enough days of practicing, and Boudreau knows they want game action.

“I think they’re really chomping at the bit to play the game. They know, like who our opposition is the next five games. You’re playing the best of the best in the NHL right now, so it’s a test to see where you’re at.”

“Hopefully by this time next week they will have figured out we passed the test.”

As for the road trip as a whole, for continued evaluation of the team purposes and the COVID layoff, Boudreau responded they have to be ready “and that is what hard practices were for.”

“You’re playing against guys that want to beat you but it’s still a test of us against them and we’ll see where we stand at the end of this week.”

Yes, tonight’s game is one leg of the five game marathon road trip. It’s not a sprint as some would make it.

One leg does not make a marathon result, or indicate how the individual players will fair from leg to leg, in this monumental marathon-relay challenge.

Unfortunately the biggest challenge for the Canucks marathon-relay team, will be facing a different set of fresh and game ready determined competitive bunch, well skilled and accomplished this season.

So we will see what the Vancouver Canucks are made of by the end of the road trip.

And what what color the litmus test indicates, and the marathon-relay final result.