Los Angeles Kings v Colorado Avalanche (Staples Center)
Time: 1.00 PM
TV: RDS, NHL Network, Fox Sports West
Enemy reading: Mile High Hockey
Avalanche (projected) lineup:
MacKinnon-Duchene-O’Reilly
Landeskog-Stastny-Parenteau
McGinn-Mitchell-Talbot
Bordeleau-Cliche-McLeod
Hejda-Johnson
Sarich-Benoit
Barrie-Guenin
Varlamov
Injured: Alex Tanguay, Ryan Wilson; Scratched: Nick Holden
Kings (projected) lineup:
King-Kopitar-Carter
Brown-Stoll-Williams
Lewis-Richards-Toffoli
Clifford-Fraser-Nolan
Muzzin-Doughty
Regehr-Voynov
Martinez-Greene
MARTIN JONES
Injured: Jonathan Quick, Willie Mitchell; Scratched: Matt Frattin, Dan Carcillo
Game notes:
- Just getting this out of the way: if you want to talk about Semyon Varlamov’s off-ice life in a way which is disrespectful to women in general or Evgeniya Vavrinyukat in particular, I will delete your comment and ban you so fast that you’ll probably cry a little bit. Don’t try to cross me on this or I will destroy you.
- The last time these two teams met, all the Kings not named Ben Scrivens had their heads totally up their own butts, got out-played by the Avs, and lost 1-0 in OT. It was bad and embarrassing and…bad. My recommendation is that the Kings not do that again.
- Willie Mitchell “would probably be available” but Darryl Sutter is “happy with the six guys that are in there”. Coming off of a decisive win against a divisional rival, I am just shocked that Darryl Sutter doesn’t want to change his lineup.
- Obligatory comment about how Martin Jones is amazing and great and delightful. If he wins this game today, he will tie the NHL record for consecutive winning decisions to start an NHL career – in a season, I think. Bob Froese won his first eight with Philly in 1982-83. Ray Emery won his first nine with Ottawa, but took from 2002 until 2006. And now he’s married to Keshia Chante, so who’s the real winner here, Ray.
- [Moment of silence for Linden Vey]
- The Kings’ possession game dominance has actually diminished somewhat during this recent run of success, but our good friend regression has come to hang out. The Kings are scoring goals in bushels, nobody seems to be able to muster any offence against them other than Chicago, and it looks like Jeff Carter has started to remember that he’s Jeff Carter. Good stuff.
- Avs first-liners Matt Duchene and Ryan O’Reilly are on a roll, but some of their other whizz kids – namely Gabriel Landeskog and Nathan MacKinnon – haven’t been lighting up the scoreboard lately. Still, the Avs’ forward corps is young, fast, and no longer the defensive nightmare they have been in recent seasons. If Jan Hejda-Erik Johnson weren’t their best defensive pairing, the Avalanche would be legitimately terrifying.
- Prediction: Kings win 4-2, people continue to cry about how Dustin Brown is history’s greatest monster, and I cry a lot about how great Matt Duchene is gonna look on John Tavares‘ wing in Sochi.