Los Angeles Projected Lines
Marian Gaborik – Anze Kopitar – Jeff Carter
Dustin Brown – Jarret Stoll – Justin Williams
Tanner Pearson – Trevor Lewis – Tyler Toffoli
Kyle Clifford – Mike Richards – Dwight King
Jake Muzzin – Drew Doughty
Alec Martinez – Matt Greene
Brayden McNabb – Jamie McBain
Jonathan Quick
Martin Jones
Calgary Projected Lines
Curtis Glencross – Sean Monahan – David Jones
Johnny Gaudreau – Markus Granlund – Jiri Hudler
Mason Raymond – Joe Colborne – Paul Byron
Brandon Bollig – Matt Stajan – Lance Bouma
TJ Brodie – Mark Giordano
Kris Russell – Dennis Wideman
Raphael Diaz – Deryk Engelland
Jonas Hiller
Karri Ramo
- Tonight the Kings play host to the Flames for the first time in 18 home games this season. The Flames will start Jonas Hiller, giving Kings fans their 18th opportunity to chant his name.
- Flames defenseman Mark Giordano is really good or whatever. He is the Flames’ Jake Muzzin in that he is an excellent defenseman with the most exciting eyebrows on his team. Those things are like 50% of the way to a venn diagram.
- The Flames also dress Dennis Wideman on D. One time Dennis Wideman did this. I hope that he does again.
- People keep talking about the Flames being good, but they’re really not that good, and their results of late are beginning to reflect that. They have the third-worse corsi in the league at 5v5 (all situations). That’s bad. They lost their last game in overtime, which is the best result they’ve had in their last 8 games. That’s really bad.
- The Kings are playing better! Really. While they have won their last two games to end a stretch of frustrating outcomes, they were really playing okay hockey even during that tough stretch. Micah Blake McCurdy puts together neat possession charts on twitter all the time. They show a good team. Here’s how the Kings have fared in their past 25 games, and here’s how they’ve fared in their past 12. Bottom right is good, top left is bad. The Kings are bottom right. The Kings are good.
- Robyn Regehr will hit the IR and in his stead the Kings will ice Jamie McBain. McBain will join the team on a pairing with Brayden McNabb. McBain has played roughly a third of his 5v5 minutes with McNabb so far this season. The pairing was much maligned and certainly looked bad when they were put together earlier this season, but surely they weren’t that ba–ZE GOGGLES DO NOTHING!!
- Last year, all the games between these two teams were wonderful and ended without drama. We will speak no more of them, amen.
- Have you seen this picture of Tyler Toffoli sitting on the lap of Santa Claus? Take a few seconds out of your day to make sure you do that. Happy Holidays to us all and to us all a good night./