Canada forward Sidney Crosby loses his footing against Latvia forward Ronalds Kenins in game at the 2014 Winter Olympics, Friday, Feb. 14, 2014, in Sochi, Russia. Photograph by: Mark Humphrey , AP

VANCOUVER - The Buffalo Sabres are in town Friday night to meet the Vancouver Canucks and about the only folks who may be really excited about that are the good people of Latvia.

The cellar-dwelling Sabres, of course, have their Latvian ‘all-star’ Zemgus Girgensons, and the Canucks on Thursday recalled Latvian forward Ronalds Kenins from their Utica farm team.

This game is going to get huge ratings in Riga.

Kenins was summoned due to injuries to forwards Derek Dorsett and Brad Richardson, neither of whom are expected to be available for tonight’s game.

He has five goals and 12 points in 36 games with Utica this season, so hopefully the Canucks are not looking to the 23-year-old winger to solve their goal-scoring woes.

What Kenins does possess is good speed and size -- he’s 6-foot-4 and 205 pounds -- as well as plenty of grit.

“Ronnie is very hard-working,” said Vancouver defenceman Frankie Corrado, who was Kenins’ teammate for much of this season in Utica. “He flies around the ice, he finishes every check and brings a lot of sandpaper to his game. At the same time, he is on our power play down there and is highly skilled and has made some really nice plays for our team. He brings a lot to the table. I think everyone should be excited to see what he does.”

Kenins was signed as a free agent this past summer by the Canucks after spending three seasons with Zurich of the Swiss A league. He made an impression on Vancouver coach Willie Desjardins at training camp in Whistler.

“I really liked him in camp when I saw him,” Desjardins said. “He is a good young player and does lots of things well. He has played well down there. We want to try and recognize guys who have played well and he has played well. I think that’s one of our jobs and that is one of the reasons we brought Frankie in is to find out where guys are at in our system. We need to find that out. It gives us a chance to get a good look at him.”

Kenins, who played for Latvia at the Winter Olympics, was in transit Thursday and will skate with the Canucks Friday morning in advance of what will be his NHL debut.

“He has really come into his own,” Corrado said of Kenins. “Early in the season he was kind of adjusting to the smaller ice and guys being on top of you. Now he’s found a lot of room to play and is showing why he is an Olympian and why Vancouver signed him. He’s a pretty exciting player to watch and I like what he does.”

The Canucks have not been too exciting to watch lately, especially on home ice. Vancouver is coming off a 4-0 home-ice loss to the Anaheim Ducks on Tuesday night and has not scored at Rogers Arena in more than eight periods of play.

“We haven’t scored at home for quite some time and we know we are due,” said winger Radim Vrbata, who has been Vancouver’s lone consistent goal-scorer all season. “We have to make some offence, starting with us, starting with the power play. The last two games we had opportunities on the power play to turn the game around and we didn’t take advantage of it. So that’s something we worked on in practice today and hopefully it will show tomorrow."

” “We have to work a little bit harder, be more intense,” added Canucks captain Henrik Sedin. “I think the last couple of weeks I feel we are starting to feel a little bit sorry for ourselves with guys not scoring. And instead of going out there and feeling good about yourselves, you see what you saw the other night where you go out onto the ice and hope something happens for you. That is not going to happen.”

Desjardins tinkered with his first-unit power play in Thursday’s practice, where he had Nick Bonino in Alex Burrows’ spot as the net-front presence.

“I wouldn’t mind giving teams a different look on our power play,” Desjardins said.

Bonino is one of a long list of Canucks whose offence has gone AWOL.

“I think we just have to be hard to play against,” Bonino said. “That’s what we do when we are successful, we work harder than the other team.”

Desjardins, meanwhile, did not offer much information on Dorsett and Richardson. Dorsett suffered a hit to the head courtesy of Anaheim centre Ryan Kesler on Tuesday night and has not skated since.

“I think he’s still a little bit away,” Desjardins said.

Richardson has missed the last three games with a foot injury.

“We were hoping he’d be back sooner, but it seems to be taking a little longer," Desjardins said. “I don’t think it’s anything major.”

ICE CHIPS: Kenins would become the fourth Latvian to play for the Canucks. Winger Herbert Vasiljevs played 18 games in the 2001-02 season. The other two were goaltenders Arturs Irbe (1997-98) and Peter Skudra (2001-02 to 2002-03). . .The Canucks have moved the start time of Sunday’s game against the Minnesota Wild up 30 minutes to 12 noon to accommodate fans wanting to get home in time to watch the Super Bowl.

NEXT GAME: Sabres at Canucks

RECENT RUN

This is the second game of a six-game homestand for the Canucks, who are coming off a lacklustre 4-0 loss to the Anaheim Ducks. The Canucks managed just seven shots in the final two periods. Vancouver has lost two straight games and is 5-5-0 in its last 10 outings. The Sabres are dead last in the NHL and took a 12-game losing streak into Edmonton, where they met the Oilers on Thursday night.

BAD TO THE BONE

How bad are the Sabres? Well, a look at some of the NHL’s key statistical categories (as of Thursday) offer a glimpse. Buffalo is dead last in offence, averaging just 1.75 goals a game. The Sabres are giving up a league-worst 3.54 goals. Their power play, which had converted just 10.5 per cent of its opportunities, is also last. And their penalty-kill? Yes, you guessed it, dead last. Buffalo’s PK has killed only 73.8 per cent of opposition power plays.

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THE CODY FILE

Former Canuck Cody Hodgson is in the second year of a six-year, $25.5-million contract with the Sabres. After a respectable 20-goal, 44-point campaign last season, Hodgson’s production has plummeted. And that’s putting it charitably. He entered Thursday night’s game in Edmonton with just two goals and seven points. Coach Ted Nolan has him buried on the third and fourth lines and he’s averaging just over 13 minutes of ice time a night.

HEAD TO HEAD

Tonight’s game is the first of two meetings with the Sabres this season. The Canucks visit Buffalo on Feb. 26 on the final game of a five-game eastern road trip. Vancouver swept last season’s two-game series, winning 3-0 in Buffalo, where Roberto Luongo stopped all 25 shots he faced, and 4-2 at Rogers Arena with Eddie Lack in goal. Centre Brad Richardson scored in both games last season for the Canucks.

QUOTABLE

“You look at the standings and it’s a team you are supposed to beat and that’s probably what makes them a dangerous team. Everybody is expecting you to win and if you do it is something you should have done and if you don’t it’s obviously not very good. . .They have a good players. There is a reason they are in the National Hockey League. On any given night, if don’t play good you are going to lose.” Canucks winger Jannik Hansen on the Sabres.

bziemer@vancouversun.com; twitter.com/bradziemer