Game Day #10: Kings-Flames Preview

Los Angeles Kings v Calgary Flames (Staples Center)

Time: 7.30 PM

TV: Fox Sports West

Enemy reading: Matchsticks & Gasoline

Flames (projected) lineup:

Glencross-Backlund-Stempniak
Galiardi-Colborne-Bouma
Baertschi-Monahan-Hudler
Jackman-Street-McGrattan

Giordano-Brodie
Wideman-Russell
Butler-O'Brien

Ramo

Injured: Mike Cammalleri, David Jones, Matt Stajan; Scratched: Christopher Breen

Kings (projected) lineup:

Brown-Kopitar-Williams
Carcillo-Richards-Carter
King-Stoll-Lewis
Clifford-Fraser-Nolan

Regehr-Doughty
Mitchell-Voynov
Muzzin-Greene

Quick

Game notes:

• I can't even joke about the Flames roster. I'm not a complete monster.
• I pointed out Jamie Kompon's evil curse on the powerplay and then it got better! Because the Kings were playing the Stars, who are terrible! Luckily, the Flames are also terrible.
• To be fair, the Flames had some surprising semi-success to start the season, but the thing is that "tries really hard" can only overcome "actually good at hockey" for so long. Joey Macdonald didn't magically become a good NHL starter. The Flames might have the worst fourth line in hockey. Sean Monahan is shooting like 600% or something. Yeah, okay.
• The last two games the Flames have played, they got bounced by the Ducks 3-2 and the Sharks 6-3. So...it would be good if the Kings won this very winnable game tonight.
• What would be a boost is if Mike Cammalleri, who's been out this entire season thus far while nursing a hand injury, makes it back into the lineup. If so, Tim Jackman likely gets scratched and I assume the bottom-six gets shuffled around a bit.
• Coach Sutter continues his "win and you're in" philosophy for the skaters, keeping the lineup that trounced Dallas two days ago intact. I'm not wild about keeping Matt Frattin and Alec Martinez benched, but I also understand the impulse to reward good performances. The defence, especially, was lights out on Saturday, making it approximately 0.01% likely that Martinez was going to get back into the lineup.
• Let's just keep on rolling. Prediction: Kings win 4-1, and I'm not going to get on Kopitar's case about scoring a goal if he has another game tonight like he did against Dallas.