With the New Year's game to kick off on January 1st between the Canucks and Devils, excitement is building regarding the pre-game festivities.
The full rosters for the Old Timer’s game, which is the pre-game entertainment, has been released.
Vancouver’s top line will host Daniel Sedin on left wing, Henrik Sedin at center and Pavel Bure at right wing. The second line will feature Markus Naslund on left wing, Trevor Linden at center and Stan Smyl on right wing. The third line will have Geoff Courtnall on left wing, Cliff Ronning at center and Tony Tanti at right wing. Finally, the fourth line will see Gino Odjick at left wing, Thomas Gradin at center and Jim Sandlak at right wing.
Vancouver’s defensive pairings will have Dave Babych and Jyrki Lumme together, with Mattias Ohlund and Harold Snepsts as the second pair, and finally Sami Salo and Doug Lister as the third pairing.
Each team will dress three goalies, and they will play one period each. Vancouver will have Kirk McLean starting the game, with Dan Cloutier taking over for the second period and finally Roberto Luongo playing the 3rd period.
Vancouver will bring back long-time coach and fan favorite, Marc Crawford, to coach the game. Marc Crawford coached a total of 529 games, including 246 wins, 189 losses, 62 ties and 32 overtime losses.
New Jersey’s top line will host Patrik Elias on left wing, Bobby Holik at center and Brian Rolston at right wing. The second line will feature Jay Pandolfo on left wing, John MacLean at center, and Randy McKay on right wing. The third line will have Kirk Muller on left wing, Sergei Brylin at center, and Jamie Langenbrunner on right wing. Finally, the fourth line will see Scott Gomez on left wing, John Madden at center and Petr Sykora at right wing.
New Jersey’s defensive pairings will feature Scott Niedermayer and Scott Stevens together. Colin White and Brian Rafalski will hold down the fort on the second pairing. Ken Danekyo and Bruce Driver will be together on the 3rd pairing.
Martin Brodeur will start the game in net, with Chris Terreri in relief for the second period, followed by Sean Burke closing out the game in the third period.
New Jersey will also bring back a long-time coach in Jacques Lemaire. Jacques coached the Devils in 378 games and had a record of 199 wins, 122 losses and 57 ties. He won the Stanley Cup with the Devils in 1995 and won the Jack Adams Award for coach of the year in the 1993-94 season.
The New Jersey Devils have also announced that their charity of choice for the New Year's game is Insite, located in Vancouver, BC (https://www.phs.ca/program/insite/).
Insite is supervised drug injection facility providing clean equipment for drug consumption, spectrometer testing of drug contents, overdose care, clinical care, and connections to addiction, health care and other community services. The services that Insite provides are a crucial first step in battling the opioid epidemic.
Harm reduction focuses on minimizing the negative health, social and legal impacts of drug use and focuses instead on providing a safe environment for drug consumption, along with positive change supports to help individuals get the help they need. Insite boasts 3.6 million injections with 0 deaths since 2003.