Anaheim Ducks vs. Vancouver Canucks: Prediction, Preview, Picks & Odds - 3/8/2023

Time: 10 p.m. ET

Venue: Rogers Arena, Vancouver, BC

Where to watch: TVAS, SN360, SNP, TNT

DraftKings: Check back later for odds

BetMGM: Check back later for odds

Caesars: Check back later for odds

Ducks: 21-34-8

Canucks: 26-32-5

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The Anaheim Ducks will be playing the Vancouver Canucks on Wednesday, March 8 in Vancouver.

The Ducks are coming off a 5-2 loss to the Seattle Kraken at Climate Pledge Arena. Trevor Zegras and Max Comtois scored for the Ducks, who are just praying this season ends pronto to never deal with this again.

John Gibson made 26 saves in the loss.

The Anaheim Ducks have won four of their last 10 games as of March 6.

The Vancouver Canucks won against the Nashville Predators on Monday, March 6 at Rogers Arena in Vancouver with a score of 4-3 resulting from a shootout. The Vancouver Canucks currently rank 6th in the Pacific Division.

Arturs Silovs made 29 saves for Vancouver (26-32-5), which is 5-2-1 in its past eight games.

"I didn't think we had our legs, but we hung in there," Canucks coach Rick Tocchet said. "Some guys didn't have their legs, but we grinded."

Elias Pettersson gave Vancouver a 1-0 lead at 4:28 of the first period with a wrist shot over Saros' glove-side shoulder from outside the left dot.

Colton Sissons tied it 1-1 at 4:55. After Cole Smith deflected Jeremy Lauzon's shot off the post, it bounced out to the other side and left Sissons with an open net.

Vasily Podkolzin gave Vancouver a 2-1 lead when he redirected a Kyle Burroughs point shot at 10:56. Dakota Joshua made it 3-1 at 5:43 of the third from between the circles after a backhand feed from Nils Aman.

"That was really not an effort we were happy with, but wins have been hard to come by this year, so we'll take it," Joshua said.

Luke Evangelista, who was robbed in tight by Silovs on a backdoor chance late in the first period, scored his first NHL goal in his fourth game on a rush rebound at 8:31 of the third to cut it to 3-2, then deflected Tyson Barrie's slap shot with 3:05 left to tie it 3-3.

Elias Pettersson scored his 30th goal of the season and the shootout winner in the third round for the Vancouver Canucks. Pettersson also got his 300th NHL point (127 goals, 173 assists) in 306 games, making him the second-fastest player to reach the milestone in Canucks history behind Pavel Bure (246 games) and just ahead of Alexander Mogilny (307).

"That's obviously something I'm very happy with," Pettersson said.

In the shootout, Pettersson skated in slowly before shooting quickly under Saros' right pad.

"I tried to simplify my shootout and kind of wait to see what Saros is doing," Pettersson said. "He's beat me twice this season in the shootout, so I'm happy I got one on him."

The Vancouver Canucks have won five of their last 10 games.

Prediction

This is the penultimate game of why in the world do we bother? Canucks 5, Ducks 2

Ducks:

Max Jones -- Mason McTavish -- Troy Terry

Ryan Strome - Trevor Zegras -- Jakob Silfverberg

Frank Vatrano -- Isac Lundestrom -- Sam Carrick

Max Comtois -- Derek Grant -- Jayson Megna

Cam Fowler -- Scott Harrington

Simon Benoit -- Kevin Shattenkirk

Colton White -- Nathan Beaulieu

Lukas Dostal

Canucks:

Andrei Kuzmenko -- Elias Pettersson -- Anthony Beauvillier

Phillip Di Giuseppe -- J.T. Miller -- Brock Boeser

Dakota Joshua -- Nils Aman -- Conor Garland

Vitali Kravtsov -- Sheldon Dries -- Vasily Podkolzin

Quinn Hughes -- Noah Juulsen

Guillaume Brisebois -- Tyler Myers

Christian Wolanin -- Kyle Burroughs

Thatcher Demko