It's official: It'll be Canucks vs Predators in the first round of the NHL ...

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The matchup was locked in on Wednesday night when the Dallas Stars got to overtime against the St. Louis Blues

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Published Apr 17, 2024  •  Last updated 1 hour ago  •  3 minute read

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The Vancouver Canucks will soon host their first Stanley Cup playoff games in Vancouver since 2015 — and now they know who they’ll be facing: An old foe, the Nashville Predators.

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The Canucks vs Predators matchup became official after the Dallas Stars got to overtime against the St. Louis Blues on Wednesday evening. By gaining at least a point in their final game of the season, the Stars guaranteed that the Canucks won’t be able to catch them in the standings — even if Vancouver were to beat the Winnipeg Jets in their final regular season game on Thursday.

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Nashville finished their season on Monday and was almost certain to qualify as the first wild card team, with only a tiny chance that the Vegas Golden Knights would be able to pass them in the standings.

But when the Los Angeles Kings failed to beat the Minnesota Wild on Tuesday night, that locked the Predators into the first wild card spot because L.A. would not be able pass Nashville in the standings.

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While the NHL hasn’t officially announced the series schedule, sources have suggested to Postmedia a likely schedule for the first five games as follows:

• Game 1: April 21• Game 2: April 23• Game 3: April 26• Game 4: April 28• Game 5*: April 30*if necessary

The question then becomes how you handle Games 6 and 7, because Pearl Jam has booked out Rogers Arena for two world-tour opening shows on May 4 and 6. Given the challenges of storing a concert stage, it’s unlikely they’d be able to tear down the set for the show in order to have a game played on May 5. But one supposes anything is possible.

As it stands, an if-necessary Game 6 is almost certainly on May 2 in Nashville. If you need Game 7 back in Vancouver, it could theoretically be scheduled for May 3, but you know the NHL’s preference would be to have a day in between games, given it’s a five-hour flight between the two cities. A return across two time zones from Nashville to Vancouver would see teams arriving at Vancouver International Airport at 2 a.m. or so — and that’s assuming there’s no overtime in Game 6.

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Pearl Jam rarely plays concerts two nights in a row anymore, but they do have a couple instances where they’re just that on this upcoming world tour: in Los Angeles, New York City and Berlin. But for their first two shows of the tour, putting them two days apart is deliberate.

There may be an option, potentially with a huge penalty, to shift the dates of one of the concerts: Moving the opener back to May 5 would allow for Game 7 to be played on May 4, or perhaps pulling the second show back a day to May 5 would open up May 6.

Concert stages are delivered from city to city on trucks, so conceivably what is set up for Pearl Jam ahead of their tour opener on May 4 could conceivably get torn down post-show and stowed in the trucks and driven off-site then re-installed after a Canucks game on May 5, in time for the second show on May 6.

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But here’s an additional wrinkle to all this: the BMO Vancouver Marathon is the morning of May 5. There are all kinds of early-morning road closures that would have to be worked around, including Pacific Boulevard from 6:30 a.m. through 9:30 a.m. because the half-marathon races enters downtown over the Cambie Bridge, then swings east along Pacific to Quebec Street.

The Canucks and Predators have met in the playoffs only once, in the second round of the 2011 playoffs, when the Canucks won in six games and were led by a sensational performance by Ryan Kesler.

According to the NHL, four players on Vancouver’s roster have competed in a playoff series against Nashville: Nikita Zadorov (1-2—3 in 2018 Round 1 with Colorado); Tyler Myers (1-1—2 in 2018 Round 2 with Winnipeg), Ian Cole (0-2—2 in the 2017 Stanley Cup final with Pittsburgh); and Conor Garland (1-0—1 in the 2020 Stanley Cup qualifier with Arizona).

pjohnston@postmedia.com

WE WANT TO KNOW: What’s your take on the matchup? Will the Canucks win the series? Or the Predators? And in how many games? Post your prediction in the comments field below.

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