Games 4 notes for Vancouver-San Jose

Puck drop is less than two hours for game 4 of the Western Conference Finals. One of the intriguing notes going into the game is what kind of officiating we’ll see. Will it be a tightly managed game like game 3, or could it be anything goes like in game one?  Both teams do not want the parade to the penalty box, because neither team can kill a penalty this series.

Going into game four, it appears as though the Vancouver Canucks have to make some lineup changes due to injury. Defenseman as Aaron Rome and Christian Erhoff were both injured on hits from San Jose’s Jamie McGinn in game 3. Logic would say veterans Andrew Alberts and Keith Ballard would be inserted into the lineup, but an outside chance is rookie Chris Tanev could play instead. Tanev more so than Ballard and Alberts can make the tape to tape passes, but Tanev’s size is a concern.

Will the Canucks re-insert Jeff Tambellini or Cody Hodgson in place of Tanner Glass or Alex Bolduc? I can see Bolduc coming out; his impact was minimal in game 4. For the Sharks, I can see Scott Nichol coming in and Andrew Desjardins coming back out. Nichol is a good faceoff guy and can kill penalties, sometime Desjardins cannot do. Despite his 2^nd boarding major of the playoffs, Jamie McGinn would likely remain in the line-up.

Overall it would be interesting to see if the coaches would alter their line-up based on who’d be refs for the game. As an example if Tim Peel was officiating today I would not expect to see Ben Eager, Peel was the ref in game 2 where Eager was called for five minors and a misconduct.