Los Angeles Kings v Columbus Blue Jackets (Nationwide Arena)
Time: 4.00 PM
TV: Fox Sports West
Enemy reading: The Cannon
Blue Jackets (projected) lineup:
Calvert-Dubinsky-Atkinson
Jenner-Anisimov-Horton
Foligno-Johansen-Umberger
MacKenzie-Letestu-Tropp
Tyutin-Johnson
Murray-Wisniewski
Nikitin-Savard
Bobrovsky
Injured: Jared Boll, Blake Comeau, Marian Gaborik, Jack Skille; Scratched: Dalton Prout
Kings (projected) lineup:
Brown-Kopitar-Carter
Frattin-Richards-Williams
King-Stoll-Lewis
Clifford-Fraser-Nolan
Muzzin-Doughty
Regehr-Voynov
Mitchell-Martinez
Jones
Injured: Matt Greene; Scratched: Linden Vey, Tanner Pearson
Game Notes:
- The Blue Jackets lineup is straight from the team website, but the Kings lineup is a guess, after an optional morning skate. The only real things of note are that Fedor Tyutin returns to the Blue Jackets’ top defensive pairing after a brief illness, and holy crap, who even remembered that Blake Comeau got traded to Columbus?
- After sneaking by the Sabres in a 4-3 SO win, the Blue Jackets are currently in the midst of a six-game winning streak, which is…the longest streak in Columbus Blue Jackets franchise history. We’re all very excited for them. But it ends tonight, in the first meeting of these two teams since last April. (Kyle Clifford scored a goal in that game! Remember what that feels like? Me neither.)
- Thanks to their current win streak, the Blue Jackets now hold (precariously) the final wild card playoff spot in the East. After starting off the season miserably, and dealing with extensive injuries to their two marquee forwards (Nathan Horton, who missed the first 40 games of the season, and Marian Gaborik, who’s only played 18 games this season), young guys like Cam Atkinson and now-leading-scorer Ryan Johansen have stepped up, veteran defenceman James Wisniewski has been producing, Sergei Bobrovsky has started making saves, and old friend Jack Johnson has been…not horrible? It’s a brave new world in Columbus.
- The Kings, by contrast, are mired in some sort of inexplicable slump. It was a rather uneven effort from the Kings in Boston yesterday afternoon, and a pretty disappointing loss, but some positives: a) Willie Mitchell goal! b)power play goal!!, c)no funny business with netting, and d)the sort of extreme carelessness which led to both of Brad Marchand’s goals rarely happens with this team. They’ll get over it. Everything will be fine. Deep breaths.
- As has been glaringly obvious to anyone who’s watched a Kings game in the past month or two, the Kings remain a great possession team, but seem to have a disproportionate number of their shots miss the net or get blocked. The goaltending, which was superb after Jonathan Quick went down, has been quite good since he came back (the Kings still have the highest team save percentage in the league) – that’s not the problem. Whither the shots actually on goal??
- Anyway, now that I’ve talked about actual hockey things, it’s time to make fun of Tanner Pearson’s Tinder profile!! Via the delightful Hockey Players on Tinder tumblr, here it is in all its glory.
- First, I’d like to note that I never realised Tanner Pearson had such a weird jawline. Maybe cool it with the profile shots, kid.
- Second, Tanner Pearson needs to join Jake Muzzin in upping his eyebrow game. Maybe it was difficult in Manchester, but you can’t tell me there aren’t eighteen waxing joints within a block of their hotel in LA.
- Third, there are so few pictures of Tanner Pearson actually playing in a game in a Kings uniform that he has resorted to using pictures from warm-up. How sad.
- Fourth, and most importantly, we now know that Tanner Pearson uses Tyler Toffoli as the “ugly friend” to make himself look better in Facebook profile pictures. POOR TYTY.
- Between this and his Top 25 Under 25 profile, I think I’ve now written more words about Tanner Pearson than literally anybody else in the world. I’m going to go re-think my life choices now.
- Prediction: 3-1 Kings, Jeff Carter hat trick, nobody matches Tanner Pearson on Tinder :(((
