Gameday #60: Kings @ Avalanche Preview

Los Angeles Kings v Colorado Avalanche (Pepsi Center)

Time: 7:00 PM

TV: NBCSN, TSN2

Enemy reading: Mile High Hockey

Avalanche (projected) lineup:

Landeskog-Stastny-MacKinnon
Parenteau-O'Reilly-Duchene
McGinn-Mitchell-Talbot
Bordeleau-Cliche-McLeod

Johnson-Hejda
Holden-Barrie
Guenin-Benoit

Varlamov

Injured: Alex Tanguay, Cory Sarich, David Van der Gulik; Scratched: Ryan Wilson; Suspended/hopefully not golfing: Erik Johnson

Kings (projected) lineup:

Toffoli-Kopitar-Williams
Pearson-Richards-Carter
King-Stoll-Brown
Nolan-Vey-Lewis

Muzzin-Doughty
Regehr-Voynov
Mitchell-Greene

Jones

Injured: Alec Martinez (?); Scratched: Kyle Clifford, Matt Frattin

Game Notes:

• The Kings will try to sustain their momentum and carry over their 1 game winning streak into Colorado tonight.
  
• I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty excited about Darryl Sutter’s lines. We haven’t seen all of Martin Jones, Tyler Toffoli, Tanner Pearson and Linden Vey in the line-up since way back when the Kings were winning hockey games.
  
• One thing that I’m not excited about is the fact that Alec Martinez is not in the line-up. No word on whether he is still dealing with an injury or if this is a healthy scratch in favor of Matt Greene. So it’s either #FreeAlecMartinez or #HealAlecMartinez.
  
• Colorado currently sits 11 points ahead of the Kings and is 5th in the conference. They’ve managed that with some pretty hot shooting and save percentages, despite mediocre possession numbers. Usually, that mix of things means an oncoming disaster. Still, Colorado is a near lock to make the playoffs considering that even if they go .500 to finish the year they’ll still end up with 100 points on the year.
  
• The Avalanche may be hard-pressed to do even that if their percentages take a dive, especially when you consider they have the toughest remaining schedule in the West.
  
• ~Fun with Numbers~
  

  ---

  Team	GP	GF/60	GA/60	GD/60	GF%	CF/60	CA/60	CD/60	CF%	Sh%	Sv%	PDO
  Colorado Avalanche	58	2.9	2.55	0.36	53.30%	52.7	58.6	-5.9	47.40%	8.90%	93.00%	101.9
  Los Angeles Kings	59	2.22	2.07	0.15	51.80%	60.8	46.7	14	56.50%	6.00%	93.60%	99.6

  (Numbers via extraskater.com)
• Prediction: Robyn Regehr scores a hat trick. Kings win 3-0.
  

(I wrote all the text in this preview so be sure to direct your hatemail my way -RP)