Comments / New

Kings-Sharks Game 2 Preview: VENGEANCE

Los Angeles Kings v San Jose Sharks (Staples Center!!!)

Time: 7.00 PM

TV: RDS, TSN, NBC Sports Network

Enemy reading: Fear the Fin

Previous series coverage: Preview | Game 1 coverage

Sharks (projected) lineup:

Marleau-Couture-Pavelski
Galiardi-Thornton-Burns
Wingels-Gomez-Sheppard
Desjardins-Kennedy-Kearns

Vlasic-Braun
Irwin-Boyle
Hannan-Stuart

Niemi

Injured: Burish, Havlat; Scratched: Demers, Hamilton, Oleksuk, Pelech, Stalberg, Acolatse, Demelo, Petrecki, Tennyson

Kings (projected) lineup:

Brown-Kopitar-Williams
King-Richards-Carter
Penner-Richardson-Lewis
Nolan-Fraser-Toffoli

Regehr-Doughty
Muzzin-Voynov
Martinez-Scuderi

Quick

Injured: Mitchell, Greene, Clifford, Stoll (THANK, RAFFI); Scratched: the Manchester Monarchs

Game notes:

  • Raffi Torres‘ hearing for his hit on Jarret Stoll was completed earlier today, but no supplementary discipline, if any, has yet been announced. I’m not going to opine on what will, or should, happen. But Raffi Torres is generally a pretty big dirtbag, so I’m not going to feel bad if he gets the book thrown at him.
  • I’m not in love with Darryl Sutter’s decision to simply drop Brad Richardson into Stoll’s place on the third line and keep the rest of the lineup intact, but I am not the expert, and line chemistry, and blah blah blah.
  • You know what would be useful right about now? Still having Andrei Loktionov. Yeah.
  • In Torres’ absence, Joe Pavelski joins the Sharks’ first line, and the bottom six looks dramatically different than it did for Game 1. Sutter did well in getting the line match-ups he wanted during Game 1, and let’s hope that continues tonight.
  • Jonathan Quick and Antti Niemi were both quite good in Game 1, but Quick was slightly better. He’s going to have to continue to be better tonight, because the Sharks are (obviously) going to be pressing to even the series at Staples.
  • Prediction: Kings win to avenge Jarret Stoll, and I fire Raffi Torres into the sun.

Talking Points