Preseason pushes off in Terrace tonight

It’s not John Tavares versus Cody Hodgson, but a three-month hockey drought comes to an end tonight on the west coast.

The Vancouver Canucks and the New York Islanders travel to Terrace, B.C. — the lastest Canadian community to be crowned Hockeyville — in the NHL’s preseason opener.  The puck drops at 7 p.m. Pacific time.  The game will be broadcast on NHL Network in both Canada and the U.S., and regionally on Sportsnet Pacific and MSG+.  The game is also being streamed on the Canucks website.  Due to programming conflicts, all broadcasts of the game, online included, will be delayed by 30 minutes.

Despite all the widespread hype and coverage, the lineups for the two teams are expected to reflect the fact that this is the first game of the preseason.

The Islanders have sent their “Group 1” players to Terrace, according to the team’s website.  They skated together Sunday using these lines:

Forwards
Trevor Smith – Greg Moore – Jeremy Reich
Matt Moulson – Greg Mauldin – Jon Sim
Jeff Tambellini – Josh Bailey – Blake Comeau
Sean Bentivoglio – Nate Thompson – Tim Jackman

Defence
Andy Sutton – Freddy Meyer
Jack Hillen – Andrew MacDonald
Dustin Kohn – Mark Flood

Goalies
Scott Munroe
Nathan Lawson

Similarly, it will be “Group A” for Vancouver.

Forwards
Michael Grabner – Kyle Wellwood – Guillaume Desbiens
Alexandre Bolduc – Dave Scratchard – Jannik Hansen
Michael Grabner – Kyle Wellwood – Guillame Desbiens
Sergei Shirokov – Mario Bliznak – Ronald Petrovicky

Defence
Brad Lukowich – Nolan Baumgartner
Michael Funk – Lawrence Nycholat
Evan Oberg – Shane O’Brien

Goalies
Andrew Raycroft
Cory Schnieder

The Canucks used defencemen Willie Mitchell and Kevin Bieksa as their top pair with this group during their first day of training camp.  Both are in Terrace, but are not expected to play.  They were, however, slated to make apperances at several local schools, along with Islanders Jeff Tambellini and Tim Jackman.

The Islanders have set up camp in Saskatoon this preseason.  Tonight is their first of four games in six days.  They will travel to Edmonton and Calgary before hosting the two teams in the Saskatchewan city.