“We know what we’re up against. We know how good they are. And we know we didn’t play good last night, so we know we have to put our best foot forward against a really good team.”

The Vancouver Canucks (16-16-3, 7th Pacific Division) play the second of a five game road trip against the Tampa Bay Lightning (24-9-5, 2nd Atlantic Division) tonight.

The Lightning host Vancouver in the first meeting between the clubs in over two years.

The Canucks lost to Florida Panthers on Tuesday night 5-2, and already are being evaluated, poked and probed, after just one game.

And they just started the road trip. C’mon guys. It’s not fair. Not the Canucks fault they were stopped from playing because of COVID.

“Fair or not fair, it’s reality,” Boudreau told reporters Wednesday when asked about the circumstances prior to going into the road trip, and whether it was fair to judge the team on the results of the games of the road trip and after, based on those circumstances.

“We’re going to definitely know where we are at the end of the 7 game stint”, which includes the two home games flowing the road trip.

In response to questions from reporter Iain MacIntyre, Boudreau added:

“These seven games,” he continued, “are going to say whether we’ve got a chance to do something serious here or whether we’re going to have to fight and claw and put another eight- or 10-game win streak together just to make the playoffs.”

To that end the team spent Wednesday looking at video of their Florida game, going over the good, bad and ugly, trying to focus on the task at hand: defeating the Tampa Bay Lightning tonight, and hitting the ice for a practice session.

Boudreau had a number of concerns from the Florida game that the Canucks have to be better at against the Lightning, if they’re going to have a chance to win.

“When we move pucks, we’re really good. I think the biggest problem we had, quite frankly, was making bad decisions in the neutral zone and not putting pucks on tape. Making bad passes, mismanaging the puck. When we weren’t mismanaging the puck, we were having alot of O-zone time and doing fairly well.”

“I thought our D-zone coverage was sloppy, a little bit. When we were good, we were really good. But I didn’t think we moved our feet enough in the first period in our D-zone to stop them. They are a very skilled team, they go to the net very well; they got great sticks. You’ve got to eliminate them from doing that or you’re going to be in trouble every night.”

The game will be the second leg of the marathon-relay, and another monumental challenge for Vancouver.

If Vancouver can mend those deficiencies noted above and others, through team work, over 60 minutes, they could get two points.

What is team work? It’s the ability to work together towards a common vision; the ability to direct individual accomplishments toward team objectives; It is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results.

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MATCH-UP INFO

• Tonight marks the first of two meetings between the Canucks and Lightning this season: Jan. 13 (road), Mar. 13 (home).
• Vancouver is 4-5-1 in their last 10 games vs Tampa Bay (1-4-0 in their last 5).
• The Canucks have a 20-13-2-2 all-time record in 37 games against the Lightning. Vancouver holds a 10-9-0-0 record on the road against Tampa.

LIGHTNING STRIKES

• Tampa Bay begins a two-game homestand tonight
• The Lightning remain tied for first atop the NHL overall standings with Florida on points (53)
• The Bolts have ranked first or tied for first in the League standings continuously since Jan. 4
• Tampa Bay is a perfect 4-0-0 against Pacific Division teams so far this season and has won five straight against Pacific teams going back to the 2019-20 regular season.

QUICK NUMBERS

• Brock Boeser has eight points (5-3-8) in his last nine games.
• Bo Horvat has nine points (5-4-9) in his last 12 games.
• J.T. Miller has 17 points (4-13-17) in his last 13 games.
• Quinn Hughes has 12 points (0-12-12) in his last 12 games.
• Conor Garland has 10 points (5-5-10) in his last 13 games.
• Thatcher Demko has posted a .940 SV% and 1.84 GAA in his last seven games (7-1-0).

CANUCKS RANKINGS