Los Angeles Kings v Columbus Blue Jackets (Staples Center)
Time: 7:30 PM
TV: NHL Network, Fox Sports West
Enemy reading: The Cannon
Blue Jackets (projected) lineup:
Jenner-Johansen-Horton
Foligno-Anisimov-Umberger
Calvert-Dubinsky-Atkinson
Letestu-Mackenzie-Tropp
Tyutin-Johnson
Murray-Wisniewski
Nikitin-Savard
Bobrovsky
Injured: Blake Comeau, Marian Gaborik, Jared Boll; Scratched: Tim Erixon, Cody Goloubef
Kings (projected) lineup:
Toffoli-Kopitar-Carter
Brown-Richards-Williams
King-Stoll-Lewis
Clifford-Fraser-Frattin
Mitchell-Doughty
Regehr-Voynov
Muzzin-Greene
Quick
Injured: Alec Martinez; Scratched: Jordan Nolan
Game Notes:
- I tried to be positive last time and it didn’t work, so I’m pretty sure that was the universe’s way of telling me that positivity stinks and is for dummies. Tonight, I am embracing fatalism.
- The Kings are 1-8-1 in their last 10. That stinks. It is terrible. It’s the worst in the NHL – worse even than Buffalo, which is the deepest shame an NHL team can know.
- The entire Pacific Division is not very good right now. It’s like they went “being good at hockey is hard and we don’t want to do it anymore so let’s try not being very good at hockey okay cool”. And bam, the Sharks are the only Pacific team that batted above .500 this week. The Kings are the loser team in the loser division and we should feel bad about it.
- Luckily, once the Kings lose to the Blue Jackets tonight, the pain will be over – temporarily – and we get to watch some of these guys not suck in the Olympics. And by “some of these guys”, I mean Drew Doughty and Jeff Carter. The rest of them will continue to suck.
- Alec Martinez is probably going to get traded for Sam Gagner and that also sucks. I am 100 per cent convinced that Edmonton wants to trade Gagner because they are afraid that he will try to Single White Female Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and maybe wear his skin like a coat. Also, Sam Gagner blinks one eye at a time. He is a weird dude, is what I am saying.
- And how can you believe in a god when all of my Alec Martinez prayer circles have failed??? You can’t, is the answer. A first-round playoff exit is your only god now.
- This afternoon, the Kings traded Robbie Czarnik for Steve Quailer, in a trade of two people with silly names and questionable hair that nobody cares about. Even Habs Eyes on the Prize doesn’t care about this trade, and they are basically internet experts in caring way too much about shit that doesn’t matter.
- Justin Williams thinks that the Blue Jackets are a good puck possession team and normally he would be super-wrong, but they have been doing well lately and the Kings have not so let’s all continue to feel sad.
- Prediction: rocks fall; everyone dies.