Vancouver arrived in Anaheim on Sunday with a rested look after a shootout win the night before, and with two lineup changes that put fresh faces in key spots against the Anaheim Ducks. Nikita Tolopilo started in net, while Kirill Kudryavtsev made his NHL season debut.
Tolopilo was in his 21st game of the season and making his 18th start for Vancouver. He entered the night at 5-11-2 with a.881 save percentage, numbers that were included in the lineup notes as the club played the second half of a back-to-back.
Kudryavtsev replaced Victor Mancini in the lineup, while Curtis Douglas came in up front for Max Sasson. For Vancouver, the game was the final one in California this season, giving the visit to Anaheim a late-season edge as the club continued to sort through its options.
Kudryavtsev had played 42 games for the Abbotsford Canucks this season before his call to the NHL level, and he brought some production with him: two goals and 18 points. His debut was one of the few new wrinkles in a Vancouver lineup that was otherwise shaped by the grind of a back-to-back and the need to manage the roster down the stretch.
The Ducks got a look at a Vancouver group leaning on depth and on Tolopilo’s crease work. For the Canucks, the night was less about building a storyline than seeing how the pieces held together in one more game in a season that has already asked a lot from the roster.
